June 1, 2025 • 48 mins
Hello strangers! After a two-month hiatus, Flags is back. I'm sure the anticipation was not nearly at the level of the follow-up to My Bloody Valentine's epochal 1991 release, Loveless, but Jon tortures that analogy anyway.
We do a general check-in of things at the thirdway point of the season, zeroing on the starting pitching leaderboard, as well as discussing the many call-ups and how one might budget FAAB accordingly should you want to add one.
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 do a general check-in of things at the thirdway point of the season, zeroing on the starting pitching leaderboard, as well as discussing the many call-ups and how one might budget FAAB accordingly should you want to add one.
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 (00:26):
Welcome to episode three twenty nine of Flags Live Forever,
a Baseball perspectives Fantasy Baseball podcast. Remember us, I'm Mike
Janella and also remembering another guy over there, it's John Haglund.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Mike, are you Are you familiar with the band Irish
Shoegays band My Bloody Valentine.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I know of them. I don't really know a lot
of them. I mean I know who they are.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Okay, because they released an album called Loveless in nineteen
ninety one, one of my favorite albums, like Inner Circle,
great album, and then they just sort of, you know,
didn't do anything. There were rumors and rumors of their
going in the studio, they're recording this, and it wasn't
(01:11):
until twenty thirteen when they released the follow up to
their nineteen ninety one album Wow, And it was fine.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
It was pretty good.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
So I feel like we're the My Bloody Valentine of
the Fantasy Baseball podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
That's a good analogy. It can be worse. It could
be the weird thing where there's like a long gap
between movies and the second movie you're like whatever, Like
it was fine, but you didn't really need to make this. Hopefully,
it's not that. Hopefully it's the my bloody Valentine analogy
where it's better than that, it's fine.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
And also also if you're actually hearing this, that means
that we have overcome unexpected technical hurdles being forced to
shift our software platform on the fly. So this may
or may not work. And if you're hearing it, it
did work. I made it work.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
If you're not hearing it, it's very strange because somehow
it's a benefit where you're listening to this and yet
not listening to this.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
If you're if you're sensing an absence in your life
that could only be filled by flags fly forever, then
we did not succeed. But hey, we are. We are
past the Memorial Day marker of the twenty twenty five
Major League Baseball season, and I don't know, I thought
we'd just sort of check in since has been a while.
(02:31):
We when we talk privately on usually via text, I
think we both share the well I know you share.
You have this opinion that there's a lot of the
discourse in April and perhaps even early May is how
(02:51):
should I put it pointless or what underwrot? What's the
term you would use?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Mike I think kind of sucks, but you know, probably
what I what I would say is that we talk
about the same things as a community every year, where
there's just this obsession with like the first week and
the first weeks. I will say people have gotten better.
It used to be after the first week there'd be
sweeping conclusions. Now it's like after a month, people start
(03:20):
to draw conclusions. But then the weird part of this,
and I've pointed this out too, is that six weeks
or seven weeks into the season, nobody's looking at the
last three weeks of data, like nobody's saying, wow, like,
Christian Campbell has been terrible these last three weeks, so
what do I do about him? Everyone's just kind of
looking at his numbers on the hole and being like, well,
he's been okay, which is kind of true because we're
(03:41):
playing a seasonal game and at the end of the day,
it doesn't really matter if he's an average obvious image
or not, but if he's an average hitter, because that's fine.
But no one's you know, looking to pull the plug
on Christian Campbell the way they were after, you know,
a crummy hitter after the first three weeks.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
So I have a.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Hot time. And I don't mean to pick on Christian Campbell,
by the way, I just don't know.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Example, I assure you, if he's listening, he will not
take it personally. And if he's not listening to the
podcast that we've recorded, then he's he's uh, he's also
not taking it personally. But so I was thinking about,
you know, now that we're at the one third post
(04:25):
of the season, what are what are some storylines? What
are some things that we could say about the twenty
twenty five season? And what I have The conclusion I've
come to is that, Okay, this is not applied to baseball,
because baseball itself is always interesting. There are always storylines.
There's interesting teams, you know, teams that we thought would
(04:47):
do well that are maybe not doing as well, Teams
that we did not expect much from that are doing
quite well. You know, teams that are maybe outpacing our
optimistic projections. The Tigers who just swept my Giants. But
fantasy wise, I kind of feel.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Like it's sort of a boring season so far. What
do you what do you think? And and by boring,
I should say, what I mean is that.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
So a couple of years ago, we had some rule
changes that that sort of tweak the offensive environment with
the pitch clock, with the disengagement rule, the expanded or
the larger bases, So we saw it up ticking speed.
We maybe you know, we debated whether or not the
pitch clock was causing pitcher injuries. I think still inconclusive
(05:37):
on that. But those those rules rule changes have had
time to settle in a little bit, and I kind
of feel like we're in a bit of a plateau
as far as you know, the the offensive environment and
the pitching. We've been in this mode where starters are
not you know, we've it's been several years since we've
had the kind of downturn in uh start innings that
(06:00):
seems to have leveled off.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
So are we in just this kind of static phase.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
And sort of just rehashing the last couple of years
this year because there just don't seem to be like
many kind of global overall surprises this year.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah. Probably I was looking earlier at like the top
hitters and ADP and something I noticed, and maybe this
is like the non story story, is that nearly all
the hitters at the top, or are the hitters who
were taken in the first round of the draft, which
like in previous years, that actually didn't happen, Like there
(06:37):
were a few of those hitters, but at least in
the first half there was more variability, and then you
saw like some of those first round hitters kind of
catch up and bubble up to the top, like we
saw this last year with Francisco Lindora. We we don't need
to you know, rehash that that again because that happened
twenty twenty four. This year really like you know, yeah,
you've got Pete Crow Armstrong, and you've got a couple
(06:58):
other players, but like, for the most part, the top
like fifteen hitters are the hitters we took in the
first or close to the first round. Like it's kind
of boring. On the pitching side, it's a little more interesting,
but a lot of it's governed what has been government
in the past, which is injuries. It isn't there aren't
really too many hitters, too many pitchers that are that
(07:20):
were taken out or near the top where they've pitched
a full season and they've stunk. It's more the predictable
thing of like, well, you know, Blake Snell got hurt
Gilbert not it was practicably got hurt. But the idea
of a pitcher getting hurt, he got hurt like that,
that's that's really what's happening. So you are right, like
there's there's kind of stability, and like even in the
(07:41):
FAB like I write a FAB column every week at
Baseball Perspectives, there's some years where there's some fab excitement
and there's some players that's like, wow, oh my gosh,
like this it's amazing that this player came up or
that player came up. We haven't really had that. We
haven't really had a week per se, like there's an
player here, at a player there, but we haven't had
(08:01):
a fabopal lose. I hate that term, and that's the
term that people use. We have it in a week.
It's like, oh my gosh, Like all these players came through.
It's really exciting. It's going to impact leagues. I don't
say it's dull because I'm enjoying the season, but you're right,
it doesn't have the same There hasn't been the same
kind of impact thing. And to your point, like even
last year, last year, the thing that drove the narrative
(08:24):
early was all these players, particularly pitchers who signed late
unless you want to count Kyle Gibson. And I don't
think anybody wants to count Kyle Gibson. From a fantasy perspective,
there wasn't even that. So yeah, you have to really
take a magnifying glass to look at the trends, and
we just haven't seen it, Like, we just haven't seen
a trend that stands out compared to what's happened like
(08:45):
the last three or four years. I think we probably
are kind of in our new normal, like where this
is where we are right now. It's an environment where
I think pitching is stronger, it's harder to hit than ever,
but by the same time, just because hard hit than ever,
there's still some elite hitters that are hitting for power.
And you know, we're still in the speed environment room
(09:05):
where there's still players at the top of the heat
there that are running like fools.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
And this has been episode three twenty nine of Flags
Fly Forever. Please listen to. Sorry, I'm going to shut
down the podcast since things are so so boring and fantasy. Actually,
I do want to press on the pitching and the
call ups thing a little bit. What I'm noticing, So
(09:33):
I think you mentioned this earlier in a text to me,
But I think you were looking at the auction calculator,
the Fangrapts auction calculator, and looking at the starting pitchers.
I have the starting pitchers in ranking. Yeah, yeah, And
I think what's interesting is that so the top three,
(09:58):
the clear top three right were Skiens, Scooball, and Wheeler.
And before before I start today, Skenes was fourteen, Schooble six.
A little surprising that he's that low after his dominant
start at the weekend or earlier in the week at
the weekend, it was yeah, excited.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
You're talking about Schooble, Yeah, and the Wheeler is four.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
But other than Chris Bubich, what you're seeing are a
lot of the kind of tier two pitchers dominating the
top of the ranks, and I you know, some of
that is probably driven by wins. Like I know, Max
Freed is seven or zero, so seven wins is kind
of pushing his value up also as a really low
e ra a Hunter Brown as well, you know, rodn Yamamoto,
(10:50):
Joe Ryan, I mean, Garret Crochet, who was kind of one,
you know in the sort of between the top tier
and the second tier. So again it's like, I'm maybe
this supports the avoiding a top tier, you know, like
a first or second round picture and really loading up
in that kind of like third through sixth round.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
But also I'm.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Hesitant to you know, put too much on that because
we are only in the end of May, right.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, And I went we talked about this too, you knows,
when I think about not recording for a long time,
we talk about all of this. Like last year in
mid June, I wrote an article called but this year
is different, and it was based off of a podcast
that wrote a wire that Fred Zinki and Jeff Erickson
did and Fred was going on about how, oh, this
(11:39):
year is different because the pictures are so unpredictable and
you know last year's like top pictures through the middle
of June and twenty twenty four where guys like Ranger
Suarez who was taken outside of the top three hundred
and ten, or Hauck was taken outside of the top
three hundred and Louis Heel was taking outside of the
top four hundred, and then things stabilize because they always
(12:00):
is kind of do and what we wind up with
is usually the top fifteen pitchers average like an ADP
of about one fifty or one sixty or so, with
like one or two big surprises, but really for the
most part, just just a lot of stability within the
top fifteen, even if it's not the order that we're expecting.
So I would guess that's probably what's going to happen
(12:22):
this year, just because that's what always happens. But to
your point, like, what I find really interesting looking at
this year's top fifteen, and this doesn't include today, and
you know Paul Skeens is going to move up because
there's a lot of movement early, you know that top
fifteen right now, or that top ten. To your point,
everybody and there's seven of the ten pitchers were in
(12:43):
the top one hundred and ADP Cars Radunt was inside
the top one fifteen. Only two pitchers Bubachu you mentioned
Nathan Evaldi or outside the top two hundred. Ye, Valdi
was just barely like outside the top two hundred. So yeah,
it's a more stable group than we've seen in the past,
and that could certainly change. But that's something that really
strikes me is that, Yes, your point about taking a
(13:06):
picture in the first round or two, I think there's
something to be said for like, well, and there's similar closers, right,
Like I know we hate talking about relievers, but it's
similar closer. It's like, well, you can take emmanual Class
A in round three and being a round four, But
why do that when the variability or the difference between
him and a close you took in around seven or
eight and it's closed or it's about the same or whatever.
(13:28):
This is what we're saying with the pictures. It's like, well,
why take a Paul Skimes or this Caabal when you
can take like a Hunter Brown or a Max Freed
or you know, Joe Ryan and get a pretty similar performance, right, And.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
You know, in our strategy to recall the main event
seems like forever ago we did draft main event team.
It is, I would say, pretty pretty middling at this point,
although not totally hopeless. But I think the biggest obstacle
that we've encountered is that are of our top three
(14:05):
starting pitchers, and that would be Blake Snell, Hunter Green,
and Justine Steel. Steel obviously out for the year. Blake
Snell has not pitched it since.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I guess he'll be back in July. If I had
to guess yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
I mean if he pitches before, if he makes Scull
starts before the All Star break, that'll.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Be he could. But I guess he'll be back in
like late juneor early July. That that's my unless he
is a stepback, but that's my feeling.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Always possible with Blake Snell.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Yeah, I will say as an aside for Snell and
answers to think about him. But it is weird because
it was growing at doctor injuries and there's the shoulder injury.
So I've heard some people say, see, I knew he
get hurt, and it's like, well, okay, but did you
really know that this injury over here was going to
lead to this separate injury. And I'm not a doctor.
Maybe there's a connection. It's just feels like a weird
(15:02):
I don't want to compare the players, but it sort
of reminds me of Aaron Judge getting hurt in the
outfield and hurting his toe and people going, see, he's
injury prone. It's like, well, right, right, not really like
this is a separate like kind of injury.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
It was the same thing with like Brandon Belchie, a
series of really freak injuries.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
That level Okay, yeah, he's yeah, Brandon.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
I thought of him the other day for for no
I think it was because the Giants were playing the
Nationals and I remembered that eighteen inning playoff game.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
But any anyway, no fair point about Snell.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
I'm checking my own body, and my adductor is not
that close or kinetically joined to my shoulder. So again,
not not a doctor, at least, not that kind of doctor.
But so, okay, fair point with Snell. But the point
I want to make is that we still do have
(16:00):
Hunter Green, and he didn't pitch great tonight, but he
and he was on the IL for a minimum stint.
But that's the kind of that's that's sort of one
of the hidden advantages of drafting three, you know, three
of the top thirty pitchers is that you still have
a hope that one of those three is going to
(16:22):
pitch like a number.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Well, what's really funny is that one of one of
the pitchers who was high on my list and you know,
I know this sounds like weak because you don't have
my list in front of it, was Hunter Brown, and
we just missed on Hunter Brown. I'm pretty sure I
had Brown ahead of Steal because Steel was like our
consolation prize. I keep envisioning a staff with brown and
Green like that. That would have felt like then I
(16:45):
look at Snell like lot sucks, but who cares? Like
we have like the second best picture so far, and
you know we have Green who's outside of the top
ten only because of the injury. He's essentially been a
top ten pitcher. So that's the other thing about the
strategy there there is a lot of I think it's
just pitching in general. There just is a lot of
variability and how it can shake out.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
So basically, Hunter plus any color is like an automatic
bump ten ten spots up your.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
List, right, Yeah, it's Hunter and then reservoir dogs. You
combine those those two things and you've got magic.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yes, we are really speaking to the to the youths
in our in our podcast as we as we often do.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
That reminds me Elliot Elliott. I asked Elliott if if
they knew who the killers were Ali, it's my sixteen
year old for the few new listeners we have, and
and they were like no, And I was like, uh, okay,
good because that that was a discussion on Blue Sky
last night, which was Who's going to be the iconic
band in twenty years. And my answer was like iconic
rock band, And I'm like, yeah, there's probably nobody.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, I think for rock that would yeah, that would
be that would be hard to.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Trying to be swift, but that's that's not.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah yeah, no, And although it is, it is interesting
to me that that, you know, there is a generation
now for whom The Killers is like, that's before my time,
you know, because for me, The Killers is very much
well after my my sort of prime impressions.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Well, this is weird, I know, we just want on
a tangent. But so I looked them up because it
was Chris Towers at CBS that that answered The Killers
to this prompt, and every one of their albums is
in the top ten. But that just kind of tells
you again, like that that measurement or that yardstick, it
doesn't mean what it meant like thirty years ago. No,
(18:40):
it just doesn't have the same meaning. It doesn't have
the same impact. I'd say, judging by you know, the
kids I see, you know, I drop Lucy or Elliott
off at school, the iconic band among that age group
is rock band is Nirvana, because that's you still see
the shirt. You still it's funny. But and again that's
sort of the answer, which is like, well, no one
(19:01):
since then has really filled the point anyway, back back
to back to Fantasy Baseball. I apologize for no no
on the podcast you.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
You've Got, You've got me thinking now, but I will
I will foreclose that that line of discussion for now.
I guess the other thing I wanted to ask you
about pitching is do you feel like and again, this
this could be sort of subjective, because it feels like
last year, you know, when we drafted sort of bulk
(19:34):
later round starting pitching, you know, we hit on a
few Brady Singer, help help remind me of of the others.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
That wei for a while. I mean, if you really
want me to to run through the pictures took last year,
I haven't a spreadsheet, and I can, I can certainly
pull it up, but I mean, I know where you're going.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
So if it felt.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Like this year, we and this could just be a feeling,
because I'm not entirely sure it's true, but it felt
like we weren't as lucky this year. And at the
same time, you know, Jameison, time's been pretty good. You know,
Verliner was okay until he got hurt, but you know,
he was startable, but not much not much better. So
(20:22):
Jack Lighter has been up and down, like he's had
a few good starts.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
It was heard too for a little bit, and he
was hurt.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
For a bit with the finger.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
I thought, is this just sort of you know, lucky
the draw kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
That's the idea and so so that's the idea behind
the second half of the pitching strategy I've employed, which
is I've argued and the data says that the pitchers
passed the first eight rounds of fifteen teen drafter coin flips,
and really we've lost or at least come out in
neutral this year on most of the coin flips, as
last year we came out neutral or one on all
(20:57):
but one or two. The law is last year we
would and then like Louis Varland, who we got really
quickly so it didn't really can't really hurt us. But
both those pictures are like, well, we got nothing this year.
The problem that we're having is more it's less that
we drafted a picture where we're hanging on and hanging
on he's hurt us. It's more that we've had a
(21:19):
lot of injuries, and we've just had to keep cycling through.
And in a league like an FBC, it's really difficult
to stream starting pictures one because everybody's like stashing everybody,
and then so two you're kind of stuck looking at
the free agent pool and going, yeah, like I really
don't want to stream this Rocky starter, or you know,
(21:40):
I really don't want to stream Brad Lord, or you know,
I really don't want to take this picture who is
essentially there to throw three or four innings before the
actual starter comes in, and then if somebody out there
is even a little bit better, it's like, okay, well
I can bid on him and hope to get lucky,
but I've got a bid like twenty or thirty if
I really want to get this guy. Yeah, that's that's
(22:04):
the difference between like say TGFBI and NFBC, which is
in TGFBI, there's people are paying less attention, so I
find at least and maybe you disagree because you're in
TGFBI too, John, I can put together a list of
five or six starters that are acceptable, not great, but acceptable,
and maybe put like a dollar or two on all
five or six and I get the third one or
(22:24):
fourth one, I'm like, okay, Like that's that's fine, he's
my seventh starter for one week. I'll move on to
the next guy. This guy doesn't work. You can't really
do that in main event, Like they're just there's maybe
one or two pictures there and if you miss, you're
going to not have a picture. And you know, then
you're like, okay, well I've got to start the guy
I don't really like, you know, for for a week
(22:47):
or two. We've done better recently with some of the
pictures that we've streamed, but yeah, that's that's the problem,
which is we've just had a pretty mediocre back end,
whereas last year, like CLK Clark Schmidt was with the
guys last year, we had a solid back end, and
that that was the difference.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, And and to to break it down even more,
I mean, I think what we're losing out and you know,
we've talked about ways to address this, but it's really
the strikeouts. I mean, I guess the wins some degree,
but it's not like we're getting killed on ratios from
a lot of these pictures.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Like you know, is Zach Lttel. He's been when we've
started him, he's been okay.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
I mean when when winds we're tied for fifth, and
I mean, I know it's a variable category, but yeah,
I look at everything else, like.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
But where are we in strikeouts? We're just at the bottom.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
And and we're there's one team like right ahead of us,
but then the next team like it would take two
or three really good weeks for us to move up.
And again, I think part of the problem is is
that the strategy of the three aces or near aces,
you want to get strikeouts from all three of those pictures,
so when two of them are hurt, you're just not
(23:59):
gonna the strikeouts. And I've thought about this too, like
I think next year are our random sort after the
three aces should probably just be on strikeouts, like just
plug a projection system in look at the strikeouts. This
is another thing I think or I've noticed too, which
is so there's a school of thought out there, like
(24:20):
a pictureless you know Nick Pollock about the Toby's. I
know everybody hates those pictures, but given the randomness, there's
something to be said for taking pictures like that that
are volume. Guys are not all going to work out,
but some of them will and if you get one
or two of those pictures where they're they're out there
every fifth day, they're striking out five or six batters
(24:40):
to start, they're striking out close to batter it inning.
It's not the most exciting thing, but it's also like, well,
if I can get one hundred and sixty hundred AY
strikeouts for seasonally from one of those guys at the
back end, that's the difference. Like, I think that's what
we're sing with, Like we're getting way like we're getting
way under that and I think more thannything else like that.
(25:04):
That's where we're going to have a really hot hard
time like catching up. Because to your point, I look
at the rest of the categories, you know, in terms
of any shot we might have in the overall, Yeah,
we could get there. Like even even like RBI where
we're like floundering a little bit, I could see having
a big week and like moving way up strikeouts would
(25:24):
take a big month. It would just take a month
of our team just really like overperforming in the category.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Well yeah, and that's the thing is I think with
the offensive categories, I think if we look at our
and this is you know, this was why I think
we didn't really panic last year, even when we were
doing really poorly in the first couple of months, is
you know, we would look at the projections and being
like this, this is.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Going to turn around.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Well, there's a very little chance that all of these
players are going to continue to underperform. And I feel like,
you know, for the pitching, the strikeouts is one thing
that we cannot project, you know, sort of positive agression
with like it's just less you know, let until it
unless now comes back. You know, I don't see I
(26:07):
don't see tay On or Jose Cantana or you know,
Zach Lttel.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Suddenly becoming Yeah, even Kate Horton, who's I think is
pitched well, Like outside of his initial debut against the Mets,
he really hasn't been striking people out. And yeah, so
so that that's that's the problem. And I mean, getting
back to last year, I think one reason that we
didn't panic last year is that we looked at the
hitters who were struggling, Like we looked at Corbyn Carroll
(26:38):
and May Machado and Francisco Lindor and we're like he
was Carol, Like, Okay, I get it like he's having
a down year, but is he really going to be
you know, like a like a outside of the top
two hundred value And I think our answer was no,
And it's like, okay, well if no, like we know
he's going to bounce back like this year. I kind
of look at the offense and like on the whole,
(27:00):
it's just a difficult thing where it's like, well, Jose
Ramirez is performing, he's being his boring self, like C. J.
Abrams is overperforming. I just don't see anyone on offense
where I'm kind of like, yeah, this guy's really going
to step it up for us compared to what he's
doing now, and that's going to make all the difference.
If anything. I look at the underperformers this year and
it's like I could just see them underperforming all year,
(27:22):
not that they completely disappear, but where it's like whatever,
like it looks like we you know, it's like we
goofed on this guy.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Yeah, yeah, well we'll see.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
The weird thing is there won't even be like a
huge swing and a miss with any of the hitters.
It'll be more like, well.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
We got there, like you know, forty percentile projections.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Here or maybe or maybe thirty fifth, yeah, where it's like, Okay,
well this wasn't a complete fail, but it also just
wasn't like what we needed to get from this guy
to push us close to the top. And I think
that was a difference last year. Like last year we
just had a lot of that, and this year where
we're not really we're not really getting it. And and
(28:02):
what's really odd too, is for the most part with
the hitters, we haven't had a hitter like where it's like,
oh my gosh, like we took this guy. I mean,
I think Mark Bvantis is on the cusp of this,
but for the most part, we don't have like the oh,
we took this guy and he's hurt or he's been
so horrible and so awful that like should we cut him?
Should we not cut him? For the most part, the
(28:23):
guy's in the backhand we took that we've kind of
cut and shuttled in and shulled down. And it's similar
to the pitching, where I think part of the problem
is is that we haven't really for the most part, Yeah,
Wilmer Flores has been good, really good, but we haven't
found those guys like we did last year and be like, okay,
like now we've found like our guys, we've found a replacement.
We've got a good we've got a good bench. We
can cycle people in it out. Comfidently, I think every
(28:45):
week or every like every other like twice a week,
we have that conversation. It's something we feel bad about it,
but we feel more like, okay, like this is a
decision we're making and it'll be fine. I guess it
just doesn't and things can change. It's a long season
right half of the season, but I think that's what
it is right now, the way I feel about this team,
and it goes back to your problem beginning. It's like, eh,
(29:08):
it feels to me like an above average team that
could finish I don't know, fourth or fifth. It doesn't
feel like a team to me where it's like yeah,
like I know we're underperforming, but it's going to get better.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
Wow, So much for my optimism, Mike. That really threw
some cold water.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
On my Well, hopefully I'm wrong. And I mean last year,
which one of us was more optimistic last year? I
don't remember. I know we were both like pretty at
this time last year. We were still pretty miserable.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
I don't know that's a good question. I think I
think we were both at this point in the season
last year. I think we were both like, well, we
will be competitive. But I do remember us having conversations like, look,
we it would just suck to be humiliated.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah, I think the autumn hundred you know, yeah, I
think that was a difference. I think last year was
the less sun embarrass ourselves, like, let let's try to like,
you know, finish five hundredth overall, and then when things
just kept getting better and better, like, well, let's let's
keep pushing. So I'm not giving up this year. Things
could turn around, Like, you know, Mark Bantos could have
(30:20):
twenty home runs in the first halfy Homer today, two
Bay's begun Aft threatened him. Shane Langlers has been really good.
I mean, I'm not going to rattle off every player,
but we we have We certainly have some highlights and
positive things in our team. I think what we need though,
to that point, is, you know, we need one or
(30:41):
two players like kind of like Carolyn Door did in
the second half last year, to excel, like we go
off and Jose Ramirez could obviously be that guy. Like
last year May, he hasn't done it this May, but
he could have that one month where at the end
of the month we're like, Okay, Jose Ramirez did Jseerrimerez
things like he you know, hit eleven home runs, he
stole a bases, he hit three fifty, Like we're not
(31:03):
surprised he's ose A Ramirez.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
I mean when I.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Look at the roster, what I what I think, and
maybe I'm just restating what you said in a different way,
is that we have too many sort of end of lineup,
top of bench players. Like I look at our bench
and I think it's it's pretty, it's it's good, and
you know, there I there are things I like about
(31:27):
all the all the I'm just talking about offense here,
but we have to end up starting, like, you know,
three or four of those players every week, where uh,
I just feel like they're they're low ceiling players. You're
Zach McKinstry's and your Brooks Leaves and players like that.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
So so I.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Don't know, I mean, it is it is funny that
you put it, you know, in a way that I
think sort of sums it up, is that like we're
doing much better at this point in the in the season.
But I think that that's also whereas last year we
saw so much space for improvement, and now optimism is
(32:10):
lower because we're like, well, what is the ceiling of
this team?
Speaker 1 (32:12):
You know what last year was? There's no way this
team is this bad. Like I don't know how good
it is, but there's no way this team is as bad.
And I think some of this comes from like our
combined experience last year of we've been doing this for
so long. If we're this wrong and this is a
team that's going to finish like in the bottom fifty overall,
like maybe we should hang it up before it and
(32:34):
we weren't. So this year. Yes, it's more like I
look at this team and I'm like, well, it could
get better, and I think it will, But I also
look at it, I'm like, well, this just might be
the team that we're looking at. It might it might
be I do'ly get better. I just don't know how
much better it'll get. Like I again, I if Blake
(32:55):
Snell comes back, given what he's like, I wouldn't be
surprised as we'd last year in the second half and
puts up like a one era and is ridiculous and
we're happy about him. It's just that he does it
in eighty to ninety innings, you know, like he did
last year close to it. It's like, well, okay, like
that's great, but it's not really gonna you know, push it.
But like hundred greeners like that to green Like, since
(33:17):
he's come back from his injury, and if you watched him,
he just doesn't look quite as good. I don't think
he's hurt. I think it's more that he was in
a rhythm before the before the injury, and now he
seems to have lost that rhythm. Can he get it back? Sure,
I'm just not confident that that he will.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Enough about us.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
The last thing I wanted so you brought up Kate Horton,
and I did just want to briefly touch on.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Something that you mentioned earlier, which is there are.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
There have been, you know, a number of players called
up to some moderate acclaim and fanfare. But I feel
like every week, just about every week in FAB, you know,
the sort of the Sunday night Fab, when we're that there,
there is this kind of.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
I don't know, maybe.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
This this unfounded optimism that the call up and I
think this happens more on the offensive side. But it's
been true of some pictures too, that that this call
up will be the difference maker. And I feel like
this year we've had a bunch of a handful of
call ups that are fine may or may not stick.
(34:34):
You know, the Nick kurtzs, the the Kate Horton's, you know,
Marcelo Mayor just was was called up to a lot
of fab high fab bids this weekend.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
So so the paradox, I guess is, or the challenge
is like, you don't want to be.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Unreasonable about, you know, putting all of your FAB on
one call up just because well, in this year, this
might be one of the top you know, three or
four callups of the season.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
But at the same time, you.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Don't want to just sort of exclude yourself from getting
any of those callups. So I feel like we put
a lot of our FAB resources towards Kate Horton, and
we got him, and he's been fine, But it just,
you know, I don't know, maybe you could talk a
little bit about that calculus of not over and you
(35:35):
wrote about this regarding Nick Kurtz, but not sort of
over projecting these these players who are new to MLB
and are going to go through all sorts of periods
of adjustment. It's very rare that someone comes up and
starts being a productive fantasy player from the jump. But like, also,
you don't want to get shut out on you know,
(35:56):
the entire season's worth of callups, right.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Yeah, So I think that the phenomenon here is, on
the one hand, it's really a matter of his Aulves
went you with FAB. It's really a matter of picking
your spots, so you can't I did this last year
in TGFBI. I ran a FAB in July, and probably
as I did it is I had a miserable draft
(36:19):
and I was trying to improve my team, and I
was bidding. It wasn't like I bid like nine hundred
dollars in somebody. It's more like I bid like one
hundred year, one hundred and fifty there, like you one
hundred and eighty there, And it was gone pretty quickly.
So you don't want to do that because you're going
to wind up in a position where you'll just run
out of money. And the other guys I got were
good too, It's just unfortunately you keep getting injuries, you
(36:41):
keep having needs, you keep wanting to stream a picture.
So that's part of it is that you don't want
to spend four hundred and fifty on Nick Kurtz because
unless he's like the one I was right to do
that with was Ellie de la Cruz the year he
came up, it's like, well, yeah, that was a good
move to spend half your fab for the whole season
on him, because he is tremendous. But for the most part,
(37:02):
you're not going to get that return. So that's the
one side of it is you're not going to get
that return. So spending thirty to forty percent of your
budget on Nick Kurtz to get like a solidly complimentary
corner infield or who's roster bone you should use, but
isn't going to like shoot up to the top ten
first basement or top ten corners. It's like, well, that's
kind of a waste versus. Yes. The other side of
(37:25):
it is you can't just sit on your pile of
cash all year and be like, well, I'm just going
to bid ten here or fifteen there and hope you
get lucky, and every once in a while you do,
like everyone in a while, you will get a player
where no one else bids or everyone's conservative, but really
would you wind up doing in that situation just running
out the same you know, crummy player or a couple
(37:46):
players on your active roster because you're not being aggressive enough.
So that's where the balance is, like you want to
make sure that you're spending aggressively enough that you're not like, well, oops,
you know, I didn't get this player to get that player,
versus being too timid where it's like, Okay, I'm running
my conforna out there week after week after week because
I'm just not being aggressive at all, and I'm like, well,
(38:09):
I guess he's, you know, not the guy I could
be bit on. Isn't that much better than Conforto? But
in reality, you're you're just taking essentially a bunch of
zero's in a bad average because because you're not doing enough.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I mean, I think Kurtz is instructive because you know,
he had all of the I mean, he was only
drafted last year, but he was a pretty polished college
hitter and was just crushing it in triple A to
start the season. You know, good on bass, good power,
(38:40):
and so you you know, a lot of the evidence
was there that he was going to come up and
be you know, somewhat productive, and he was okay, but
not not really I would say very borderline startable as
a CI because he was hitting for decent average but
no power. For I took him a few weeks, did
(39:02):
his first home run, and then he sort of took
off before he got injured a couple of days ago.
But I mean that's even in a best case scenario
or like an eighty percentile scenario, there's not going to
be instant.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Yeah, well in magic, I mean he's he's currently fortieth
among first basemen on the Fangress Player Raider, and that's
not completely fair because he has like half the plate
appearances of you know players up there the highest, and
these systems are weighted, you know, towards playing time, so
you know, just to kind of shift this over for
a second, the other two like really big bids were
(39:38):
also hitters. So to your point, like I think people
are really being more conservative with pitchers. Like a couple
of years ago we had all those big pitching bids.
We just haven't seen that this year. I think that's
where we kind of sort of screwed up on Whurt.
Not that we were way over. But unlike what years
in the past where people are going to have been
big at a pitcher and been big in a pitcher,
(39:59):
this year it's like, I'll bid, but I'm not going
to bid like two hundred. I'll bid one hundred or
one hundred and ten and I'll see if I get him.
So the other players that came through that were like
really big, and I think they're even more interesting. Augustine Ramirez,
he was one of the big players, and I think
and I have this up, so let let me go
(40:20):
back and look, I know that Nick Kurtz the week
he came through, Yeah, Ramirez, I was right. He was
the second biggest player that wee can TGFBI. He was
right behind him. Kurtz's average winning bid was three seventeen.
Ramirez was two forty two. And then the week before that,
and I'm sure you remember this was Chandler Simpson who
(40:42):
went for two thirty two. I think both these players
are more interesting and more instructive, and I probably not
that I have FOMO and regret like not going for them,
but I think in terms of your team needs and
your strategy, they were probably better players to get. So
Ramirez if you had a catching hole or if you
(41:03):
you know, drafted a week second catcher, if you had
an injury. He would have been a really nice guy
to kind of kind of slot in there. Like he's
he's twenty third overall among catchers, and that's with less
than a full season. Yeah, the average isn't great, but
he's got six runs, he's got a steel, he's been
kind of productive. I'd say if you took him, maybe
you're not like elated, but you can't really be disappointed,
(41:26):
right well, because.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
You were probably running out a pretty second catcher.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
So I think that's a difference. And I think the
reason that we weren't in on any of these players.
And we you know, we've been on Kurts for sure,
like but when we're we're close to him, we had
really had four solid corners because we have Wilmer floors
on our bench at the time, it was like really productive.
It was like, why are we going to add a
like put a big bit on a fifth corner who,
(41:51):
even if he is everything, isn't really much of an upgrade.
Simpson was kind of similar where it's like, well, sure
everybody and you speed, but that's not our biggest like
need or demand and to put a big bid on
Simpson and I have like a player kind of similar
Nico Horner, where he's mostly average in speed and runs,
doesn't really make a ton of sense for us. And
(42:13):
say that Ramirez where yeah, looking back, like you know,
maybe he would an Upgrand jt Real Muto, but doing
that didn't really intuitively seem to make a lot of sense.
But for some teams, and I'm glad you brought this up.
For some teams, taking Simpson if they had a big
hole in steels or taking Ramiras if they had a
big hole catcher made a ton of sense.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Right, Yeah, No, that's that's That's an interesting point to make,
is that you know your your fab bids are not
happening in a vacuum. You you are fitting them to
your team needs, and it just it was just kind
of like mismatched puzzle pieces for us. Whereas whereas in
a way that that maybe helped makes me feel better
(42:56):
about the bid on Horton, even though we you know,
by the the market, you know, by the second bid
in our league, you know, we overpaid, but we did
have the need, as you know, in starting pitching, So
it made sense for us to go bigger on someone
like that, and you can never tell I mean, you
(43:18):
know you had I didn't disagree when when you were
sort of arguing for a higher bid on on Horton,
well exactly because it was it was in need and
there was room in that rotation.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
We also, I mean, so there's two things. One, you know,
just specificly on Horton, we got him for one ay
eight and he went for one thirteen. So it wasn't
like we've been three hundred, like, it wasn't so far
ahead where it's like, oh, well that was really stupid.
It was like, well, we could have saved a little
bit of money, but we weren't like way off. And
then the other thing, and this is I think what's
always tough with bab is that it's really as much
(43:56):
as I say, well you should be strategic and not reactive,
et cetera, et cetera, it is kind of hard to
predict the future, right, Like, it is kind of hard
to be like, well, like five weeks from now, this
Bien like might look stupid because Snellim and I, Sean
and I are back and we don't need the pitching
and Horton's mediocre and we're not even using him every week.
It's just really tough to know those things. So you're
(44:18):
always trying to do the best with the information you
have in front of you, you know, as opposed to
being like, well, like I'm dumb, I'm constantly making mistakes.
And this sides back to earlier point. I'm like, well,
if that's a mentality, you're just not gonna be anybody.
You're gonna just constantly put a conservative bid, conservative, big
conservative bid. You're not anybody. Then in the year you'll
be like, yeah, I probably should have put one or
(44:38):
two moderate bids in there, just because you can't take
your fab with you.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
You cannot take your fab with you. I am actually
looking at I'm curious about where we are in So
we have we're we've all spent a little over half
our fab, right, yeah, and we are still we still
have the one to three or four fifth most fab
in a fifteen teen league.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
So yeah, it's kind of funny because that's the thing
that there's some teams and there's one team that has
like twenty four left, but our league, I feel, has
been not super aggressive, but fairly aggressive. So that's the thing,
Like we we still now that I think we're going
to be putting in like a two where three dollars
bid and three hundred particular ring player, but we sell
(45:24):
the money to like pick our slots, you know, to
kind of go in there and get some more players.
Like we are definitely not in a position where it's like, okay,
like we've got one hundred and fifty left, like we
have to save this money because if we don't and
we have injuries, we're we're just gonna be done at
the end of season. Like we we are not in
that position. So yeah, I think we still have some
(45:45):
some money to spend and we should be able to
keep making moves away. We've been making them, all right,
it's all I got. Okay, Well that's fine. Let's say
a wrap, let's pause and close out, and we'll finish up.
I'll try not to make a killer killer's pun and
(46:05):
we'll leave just we'll take a break, and you know,
I kind of did it by not doing it. We'll
take a break and come back. Thank you once again
(46:36):
for listening to episode three twenty nine of Flags Fly Forever,
a Baseball Perspective Fantasy Baseball podcast. I know we've been
gone for a while, but hopefully you've been reading the
wonderful content at Baseball Perspectives for all baseball, but particularly
fantasy baseball. Tim Jackson's A Stash List has been essential.
I'm not just saying that. I think I've picked up
(46:57):
like four or five players in my only leagues because
of some recommendations he makes, and I'm like, who is
this guy? The Deeply Landscape is another valuable piece, John,
No one did it better than you, but Ryan Boyer's
Fantasy Starting Pitcher Planner is still really good and is
a must read as well. So please, if you subscribe,
(47:18):
thank you. If you don't subscribe, what are you waiting for?
Please please do so. For Mike Challenge, John Hegeland, thank
you very much. Hopefully we'll be back sooner than two
months for our next podcast, and hopefully you hear this.
Speaker 3 (47:32):
Good night, everybody and m
Welcome to episode three twenty nine of Flags Live Forever,
a Baseball perspectives Fantasy Baseball podcast. Remember us, I'm Mike
Janella and also remembering another guy over there, it's John Haglund.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Mike, are you Are you familiar with the band Irish
Shoegays band My Bloody Valentine.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I know of them. I don't really know a lot
of them. I mean I know who they are.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Okay, because they released an album called Loveless in nineteen
ninety one, one of my favorite albums, like Inner Circle,
great album, and then they just sort of, you know,
didn't do anything. There were rumors and rumors of their
going in the studio, they're recording this, and it wasn't
(01:11):
until twenty thirteen when they released the follow up to
their nineteen ninety one album Wow, And it was fine.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
It was pretty good.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
So I feel like we're the My Bloody Valentine of
the Fantasy Baseball podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
That's a good analogy. It can be worse. It could
be the weird thing where there's like a long gap
between movies and the second movie you're like whatever, Like
it was fine, but you didn't really need to make this. Hopefully,
it's not that. Hopefully it's the my bloody Valentine analogy
where it's better than that, it's fine.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
And also also if you're actually hearing this, that means
that we have overcome unexpected technical hurdles being forced to
shift our software platform on the fly. So this may
or may not work. And if you're hearing it, it
did work. I made it work.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
If you're not hearing it, it's very strange because somehow
it's a benefit where you're listening to this and yet
not listening to this.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
If you're if you're sensing an absence in your life
that could only be filled by flags fly forever, then
we did not succeed. But hey, we are. We are
past the Memorial Day marker of the twenty twenty five
Major League Baseball season, and I don't know, I thought
we'd just sort of check in since has been a while.
(02:31):
We when we talk privately on usually via text, I
think we both share the well I know you share.
You have this opinion that there's a lot of the
discourse in April and perhaps even early May is how
(02:51):
should I put it pointless or what underwrot? What's the
term you would use?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Mike I think kind of sucks, but you know, probably
what I what I would say is that we talk
about the same things as a community every year, where
there's just this obsession with like the first week and
the first weeks. I will say people have gotten better.
It used to be after the first week there'd be
sweeping conclusions. Now it's like after a month, people start
(03:20):
to draw conclusions. But then the weird part of this,
and I've pointed this out too, is that six weeks
or seven weeks into the season, nobody's looking at the
last three weeks of data, like nobody's saying, wow, like,
Christian Campbell has been terrible these last three weeks, so
what do I do about him? Everyone's just kind of
looking at his numbers on the hole and being like, well,
he's been okay, which is kind of true because we're
(03:41):
playing a seasonal game and at the end of the day,
it doesn't really matter if he's an average obvious image
or not, but if he's an average hitter, because that's fine.
But no one's you know, looking to pull the plug
on Christian Campbell the way they were after, you know,
a crummy hitter after the first three weeks.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
So I have a.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Hot time. And I don't mean to pick on Christian Campbell,
by the way, I just don't know.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Example, I assure you, if he's listening, he will not
take it personally. And if he's not listening to the
podcast that we've recorded, then he's he's uh, he's also
not taking it personally. But so I was thinking about,
you know, now that we're at the one third post
(04:25):
of the season, what are what are some storylines? What
are some things that we could say about the twenty
twenty five season? And what I have The conclusion I've
come to is that, Okay, this is not applied to baseball,
because baseball itself is always interesting. There are always storylines.
There's interesting teams, you know, teams that we thought would
(04:47):
do well that are maybe not doing as well, Teams
that we did not expect much from that are doing
quite well. You know, teams that are maybe outpacing our
optimistic projections. The Tigers who just swept my Giants. But
fantasy wise, I kind of feel.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Like it's sort of a boring season so far. What
do you what do you think? And and by boring,
I should say, what I mean is that.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
So a couple of years ago, we had some rule
changes that that sort of tweak the offensive environment with
the pitch clock, with the disengagement rule, the expanded or
the larger bases, So we saw it up ticking speed.
We maybe you know, we debated whether or not the
pitch clock was causing pitcher injuries. I think still inconclusive
(05:37):
on that. But those those rules rule changes have had
time to settle in a little bit, and I kind
of feel like we're in a bit of a plateau
as far as you know, the the offensive environment and
the pitching. We've been in this mode where starters are
not you know, we've it's been several years since we've
had the kind of downturn in uh start innings that
(06:00):
seems to have leveled off.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
So are we in just this kind of static phase.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
And sort of just rehashing the last couple of years
this year because there just don't seem to be like
many kind of global overall surprises this year.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah. Probably I was looking earlier at like the top
hitters and ADP and something I noticed, and maybe this
is like the non story story, is that nearly all
the hitters at the top, or are the hitters who
were taken in the first round of the draft, which
like in previous years, that actually didn't happen, Like there
(06:37):
were a few of those hitters, but at least in
the first half there was more variability, and then you
saw like some of those first round hitters kind of
catch up and bubble up to the top, like we
saw this last year with Francisco Lindora. We we don't need
to you know, rehash that that again because that happened
twenty twenty four. This year really like you know, yeah,
you've got Pete Crow Armstrong, and you've got a couple
(06:58):
other players, but like, for the most part, the top
like fifteen hitters are the hitters we took in the
first or close to the first round. Like it's kind
of boring. On the pitching side, it's a little more interesting,
but a lot of it's governed what has been government
in the past, which is injuries. It isn't there aren't
really too many hitters, too many pitchers that are that
(07:20):
were taken out or near the top where they've pitched
a full season and they've stunk. It's more the predictable
thing of like, well, you know, Blake Snell got hurt
Gilbert not it was practicably got hurt. But the idea
of a pitcher getting hurt, he got hurt like that,
that's that's really what's happening. So you are right, like
there's there's kind of stability, and like even in the
(07:41):
FAB like I write a FAB column every week at
Baseball Perspectives, there's some years where there's some fab excitement
and there's some players that's like, wow, oh my gosh,
like this it's amazing that this player came up or
that player came up. We haven't really had that. We
haven't really had a week per se, like there's an
player here, at a player there, but we haven't had
(08:01):
a fabopal lose. I hate that term, and that's the
term that people use. We have it in a week.
It's like, oh my gosh, Like all these players came through.
It's really exciting. It's going to impact leagues. I don't
say it's dull because I'm enjoying the season, but you're right,
it doesn't have the same There hasn't been the same
kind of impact thing. And to your point, like even
last year, last year, the thing that drove the narrative
(08:24):
early was all these players, particularly pitchers who signed late
unless you want to count Kyle Gibson. And I don't
think anybody wants to count Kyle Gibson. From a fantasy perspective,
there wasn't even that. So yeah, you have to really
take a magnifying glass to look at the trends, and
we just haven't seen it, Like, we just haven't seen
a trend that stands out compared to what's happened like
(08:45):
the last three or four years. I think we probably
are kind of in our new normal, like where this
is where we are right now. It's an environment where
I think pitching is stronger, it's harder to hit than ever,
but by the same time, just because hard hit than ever,
there's still some elite hitters that are hitting for power.
And you know, we're still in the speed environment room
(09:05):
where there's still players at the top of the heat
there that are running like fools.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
And this has been episode three twenty nine of Flags
Fly Forever. Please listen to. Sorry, I'm going to shut
down the podcast since things are so so boring and fantasy. Actually,
I do want to press on the pitching and the
call ups thing a little bit. What I'm noticing, So
(09:33):
I think you mentioned this earlier in a text to me,
But I think you were looking at the auction calculator,
the Fangrapts auction calculator, and looking at the starting pitchers.
I have the starting pitchers in ranking. Yeah, yeah, And
I think what's interesting is that so the top three,
(09:58):
the clear top three right were Skiens, Scooball, and Wheeler.
And before before I start today, Skenes was fourteen, Schooble six.
A little surprising that he's that low after his dominant
start at the weekend or earlier in the week at
the weekend, it was yeah, excited.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
You're talking about Schooble, Yeah, and the Wheeler is four.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
But other than Chris Bubich, what you're seeing are a
lot of the kind of tier two pitchers dominating the
top of the ranks, and I you know, some of
that is probably driven by wins. Like I know, Max
Freed is seven or zero, so seven wins is kind
of pushing his value up also as a really low
e ra a Hunter Brown as well, you know, rodn Yamamoto,
(10:50):
Joe Ryan, I mean, Garret Crochet, who was kind of one,
you know in the sort of between the top tier
and the second tier. So again it's like, I'm maybe
this supports the avoiding a top tier, you know, like
a first or second round picture and really loading up
in that kind of like third through sixth round.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
But also I'm.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Hesitant to you know, put too much on that because
we are only in the end of May, right.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, And I went we talked about this too, you knows,
when I think about not recording for a long time,
we talk about all of this. Like last year in
mid June, I wrote an article called but this year
is different, and it was based off of a podcast
that wrote a wire that Fred Zinki and Jeff Erickson
did and Fred was going on about how, oh, this
(11:39):
year is different because the pictures are so unpredictable and
you know last year's like top pictures through the middle
of June and twenty twenty four where guys like Ranger
Suarez who was taken outside of the top three hundred
and ten, or Hauck was taken outside of the top
three hundred and Louis Heel was taking outside of the
top four hundred, and then things stabilize because they always
(12:00):
is kind of do and what we wind up with
is usually the top fifteen pitchers average like an ADP
of about one fifty or one sixty or so, with
like one or two big surprises, but really for the
most part, just just a lot of stability within the
top fifteen, even if it's not the order that we're expecting.
So I would guess that's probably what's going to happen
(12:22):
this year, just because that's what always happens. But to
your point, like, what I find really interesting looking at
this year's top fifteen, and this doesn't include today, and
you know Paul Skeens is going to move up because
there's a lot of movement early, you know that top
fifteen right now, or that top ten. To your point,
everybody and there's seven of the ten pitchers were in
(12:43):
the top one hundred and ADP Cars Radunt was inside
the top one fifteen. Only two pitchers Bubachu you mentioned
Nathan Evaldi or outside the top two hundred. Ye, Valdi
was just barely like outside the top two hundred. So yeah,
it's a more stable group than we've seen in the past,
and that could certainly change. But that's something that really
strikes me is that, Yes, your point about taking a
(13:06):
picture in the first round or two, I think there's
something to be said for like, well, and there's similar closers, right,
Like I know we hate talking about relievers, but it's
similar closer. It's like, well, you can take emmanual Class
A in round three and being a round four, But
why do that when the variability or the difference between
him and a close you took in around seven or
eight and it's closed or it's about the same or whatever.
(13:28):
This is what we're saying with the pictures. It's like, well,
why take a Paul Skimes or this Caabal when you
can take like a Hunter Brown or a Max Freed
or you know, Joe Ryan and get a pretty similar performance, right, And.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
You know, in our strategy to recall the main event
seems like forever ago we did draft main event team.
It is, I would say, pretty pretty middling at this point,
although not totally hopeless. But I think the biggest obstacle
that we've encountered is that are of our top three
(14:05):
starting pitchers, and that would be Blake Snell, Hunter Green,
and Justine Steel. Steel obviously out for the year. Blake
Snell has not pitched it since.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I guess he'll be back in July. If I had
to guess yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
I mean if he pitches before, if he makes Scull
starts before the All Star break, that'll.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Be he could. But I guess he'll be back in
like late juneor early July. That that's my unless he
is a stepback, but that's my feeling.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Always possible with Blake Snell.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Yeah, I will say as an aside for Snell and
answers to think about him. But it is weird because
it was growing at doctor injuries and there's the shoulder injury.
So I've heard some people say, see, I knew he
get hurt, and it's like, well, okay, but did you
really know that this injury over here was going to
lead to this separate injury. And I'm not a doctor.
Maybe there's a connection. It's just feels like a weird
(15:02):
I don't want to compare the players, but it sort
of reminds me of Aaron Judge getting hurt in the
outfield and hurting his toe and people going, see, he's
injury prone. It's like, well, right, right, not really like
this is a separate like kind of injury.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
It was the same thing with like Brandon Belchie, a
series of really freak injuries.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
That level Okay, yeah, he's yeah, Brandon.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
I thought of him the other day for for no
I think it was because the Giants were playing the
Nationals and I remembered that eighteen inning playoff game.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
But any anyway, no fair point about Snell.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
I'm checking my own body, and my adductor is not
that close or kinetically joined to my shoulder. So again,
not not a doctor, at least, not that kind of doctor.
But so, okay, fair point with Snell. But the point
I want to make is that we still do have
(16:00):
Hunter Green, and he didn't pitch great tonight, but he
and he was on the IL for a minimum stint.
But that's the kind of that's that's sort of one
of the hidden advantages of drafting three, you know, three
of the top thirty pitchers is that you still have
a hope that one of those three is going to
(16:22):
pitch like a number.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Well, what's really funny is that one of one of
the pitchers who was high on my list and you know,
I know this sounds like weak because you don't have
my list in front of it, was Hunter Brown, and
we just missed on Hunter Brown. I'm pretty sure I
had Brown ahead of Steal because Steel was like our
consolation prize. I keep envisioning a staff with brown and
Green like that. That would have felt like then I
(16:45):
look at Snell like lot sucks, but who cares? Like
we have like the second best picture so far, and
you know we have Green who's outside of the top
ten only because of the injury. He's essentially been a
top ten pitcher. So that's the other thing about the
strategy there there is a lot of I think it's
just pitching in general. There just is a lot of
variability and how it can shake out.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
So basically, Hunter plus any color is like an automatic
bump ten ten spots up your.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
List, right, Yeah, it's Hunter and then reservoir dogs. You
combine those those two things and you've got magic.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yes, we are really speaking to the to the youths
in our in our podcast as we as we often do.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
That reminds me Elliot Elliott. I asked Elliott if if
they knew who the killers were Ali, it's my sixteen
year old for the few new listeners we have, and
and they were like no, And I was like, uh, okay,
good because that that was a discussion on Blue Sky
last night, which was Who's going to be the iconic
band in twenty years. And my answer was like iconic
rock band, And I'm like, yeah, there's probably nobody.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, I think for rock that would yeah, that would
be that would be hard to.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Trying to be swift, but that's that's not.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah yeah, no, And although it is, it is interesting
to me that that, you know, there is a generation
now for whom The Killers is like, that's before my time,
you know, because for me, The Killers is very much
well after my my sort of prime impressions.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Well, this is weird, I know, we just want on
a tangent. But so I looked them up because it
was Chris Towers at CBS that that answered The Killers
to this prompt, and every one of their albums is
in the top ten. But that just kind of tells
you again, like that that measurement or that yardstick, it
doesn't mean what it meant like thirty years ago. No,
(18:40):
it just doesn't have the same meaning. It doesn't have
the same impact. I'd say, judging by you know, the
kids I see, you know, I drop Lucy or Elliott
off at school, the iconic band among that age group
is rock band is Nirvana, because that's you still see
the shirt. You still it's funny. But and again that's
sort of the answer, which is like, well, no one
(19:01):
since then has really filled the point anyway, back back
to back to Fantasy Baseball. I apologize for no no
on the podcast you.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
You've Got, You've got me thinking now, but I will
I will foreclose that that line of discussion for now.
I guess the other thing I wanted to ask you
about pitching is do you feel like and again, this
this could be sort of subjective, because it feels like
last year, you know, when we drafted sort of bulk
(19:34):
later round starting pitching, you know, we hit on a
few Brady Singer, help help remind me of of the others.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
That wei for a while. I mean, if you really
want me to to run through the pictures took last year,
I haven't a spreadsheet, and I can, I can certainly
pull it up, but I mean, I know where you're going.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
So if it felt.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Like this year, we and this could just be a feeling,
because I'm not entirely sure it's true, but it felt
like we weren't as lucky this year. And at the
same time, you know, Jameison, time's been pretty good. You know,
Verliner was okay until he got hurt, but you know,
he was startable, but not much not much better. So
(20:22):
Jack Lighter has been up and down, like he's had
a few good starts.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
It was heard too for a little bit, and he
was hurt.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
For a bit with the finger.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
I thought, is this just sort of you know, lucky
the draw kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
That's the idea and so so that's the idea behind
the second half of the pitching strategy I've employed, which
is I've argued and the data says that the pitchers
passed the first eight rounds of fifteen teen drafter coin flips,
and really we've lost or at least come out in
neutral this year on most of the coin flips, as
last year we came out neutral or one on all
(20:57):
but one or two. The law is last year we
would and then like Louis Varland, who we got really
quickly so it didn't really can't really hurt us. But
both those pictures are like, well, we got nothing this year.
The problem that we're having is more it's less that
we drafted a picture where we're hanging on and hanging
on he's hurt us. It's more that we've had a
(21:19):
lot of injuries, and we've just had to keep cycling through.
And in a league like an FBC, it's really difficult
to stream starting pictures one because everybody's like stashing everybody,
and then so two you're kind of stuck looking at
the free agent pool and going, yeah, like I really
don't want to stream this Rocky starter, or you know,
(21:40):
I really don't want to stream Brad Lord, or you know,
I really don't want to take this picture who is
essentially there to throw three or four innings before the
actual starter comes in, and then if somebody out there
is even a little bit better, it's like, okay, well
I can bid on him and hope to get lucky,
but I've got a bid like twenty or thirty if
I really want to get this guy. Yeah, that's that's
(22:04):
the difference between like say TGFBI and NFBC, which is
in TGFBI, there's people are paying less attention, so I
find at least and maybe you disagree because you're in
TGFBI too, John, I can put together a list of
five or six starters that are acceptable, not great, but acceptable,
and maybe put like a dollar or two on all
five or six and I get the third one or
(22:24):
fourth one, I'm like, okay, Like that's that's fine, he's
my seventh starter for one week. I'll move on to
the next guy. This guy doesn't work. You can't really
do that in main event, Like they're just there's maybe
one or two pictures there and if you miss, you're
going to not have a picture. And you know, then
you're like, okay, well I've got to start the guy
I don't really like, you know, for for a week
(22:47):
or two. We've done better recently with some of the
pictures that we've streamed, but yeah, that's that's the problem,
which is we've just had a pretty mediocre back end,
whereas last year, like CLK Clark Schmidt was with the
guys last year, we had a solid back end, and
that that was the difference.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, And and to to break it down even more,
I mean, I think what we're losing out and you know,
we've talked about ways to address this, but it's really
the strikeouts. I mean, I guess the wins some degree,
but it's not like we're getting killed on ratios from
a lot of these pictures.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Like you know, is Zach Lttel. He's been when we've
started him, he's been okay.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
I mean when when winds we're tied for fifth, and
I mean, I know it's a variable category, but yeah,
I look at everything else, like.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
But where are we in strikeouts? We're just at the bottom.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
And and we're there's one team like right ahead of us,
but then the next team like it would take two
or three really good weeks for us to move up.
And again, I think part of the problem is is
that the strategy of the three aces or near aces,
you want to get strikeouts from all three of those pictures,
so when two of them are hurt, you're just not
(23:59):
gonna the strikeouts. And I've thought about this too, like
I think next year are our random sort after the
three aces should probably just be on strikeouts, like just
plug a projection system in look at the strikeouts. This
is another thing I think or I've noticed too, which
is so there's a school of thought out there, like
(24:20):
a pictureless you know Nick Pollock about the Toby's. I
know everybody hates those pictures, but given the randomness, there's
something to be said for taking pictures like that that
are volume. Guys are not all going to work out,
but some of them will and if you get one
or two of those pictures where they're they're out there
every fifth day, they're striking out five or six batters
(24:40):
to start, they're striking out close to batter it inning.
It's not the most exciting thing, but it's also like, well,
if I can get one hundred and sixty hundred AY
strikeouts for seasonally from one of those guys at the
back end, that's the difference. Like, I think that's what
we're sing with, Like we're getting way like we're getting
way under that and I think more thannything else like that.
(25:04):
That's where we're going to have a really hot hard
time like catching up. Because to your point, I look
at the rest of the categories, you know, in terms
of any shot we might have in the overall, Yeah,
we could get there. Like even even like RBI where
we're like floundering a little bit, I could see having
a big week and like moving way up strikeouts would
(25:24):
take a big month. It would just take a month
of our team just really like overperforming in the category.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Well yeah, and that's the thing is I think with
the offensive categories, I think if we look at our
and this is you know, this was why I think
we didn't really panic last year, even when we were
doing really poorly in the first couple of months, is
you know, we would look at the projections and being
like this, this is.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Going to turn around.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Well, there's a very little chance that all of these
players are going to continue to underperform. And I feel like,
you know, for the pitching, the strikeouts is one thing
that we cannot project, you know, sort of positive agression
with like it's just less you know, let until it
unless now comes back. You know, I don't see I
(26:07):
don't see tay On or Jose Cantana or you know,
Zach Lttel.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Suddenly becoming Yeah, even Kate Horton, who's I think is
pitched well, Like outside of his initial debut against the Mets,
he really hasn't been striking people out. And yeah, so
so that that's that's the problem. And I mean, getting
back to last year, I think one reason that we
didn't panic last year is that we looked at the
hitters who were struggling, Like we looked at Corbyn Carroll
(26:38):
and May Machado and Francisco Lindor and we're like he
was Carol, Like, Okay, I get it like he's having
a down year, but is he really going to be
you know, like a like a outside of the top
two hundred value And I think our answer was no,
And it's like, okay, well if no, like we know
he's going to bounce back like this year. I kind
of look at the offense and like on the whole,
(27:00):
it's just a difficult thing where it's like, well, Jose
Ramirez is performing, he's being his boring self, like C. J.
Abrams is overperforming. I just don't see anyone on offense
where I'm kind of like, yeah, this guy's really going
to step it up for us compared to what he's
doing now, and that's going to make all the difference.
If anything. I look at the underperformers this year and
it's like I could just see them underperforming all year,
(27:22):
not that they completely disappear, but where it's like whatever,
like it looks like we you know, it's like we
goofed on this guy.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Yeah, yeah, well we'll see.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
The weird thing is there won't even be like a
huge swing and a miss with any of the hitters.
It'll be more like, well.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
We got there, like you know, forty percentile projections.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Here or maybe or maybe thirty fifth, yeah, where it's like, Okay,
well this wasn't a complete fail, but it also just
wasn't like what we needed to get from this guy
to push us close to the top. And I think
that was a difference last year. Like last year we
just had a lot of that, and this year where
we're not really we're not really getting it. And and
(28:02):
what's really odd too, is for the most part with
the hitters, we haven't had a hitter like where it's like,
oh my gosh, like we took this guy. I mean,
I think Mark Bvantis is on the cusp of this,
but for the most part, we don't have like the oh,
we took this guy and he's hurt or he's been
so horrible and so awful that like should we cut him?
Should we not cut him? For the most part, the
(28:23):
guy's in the backhand we took that we've kind of
cut and shuttled in and shulled down. And it's similar
to the pitching, where I think part of the problem
is is that we haven't really for the most part, Yeah,
Wilmer Flores has been good, really good, but we haven't
found those guys like we did last year and be like, okay,
like now we've found like our guys, we've found a replacement.
We've got a good we've got a good bench. We
can cycle people in it out. Comfidently, I think every
(28:45):
week or every like every other like twice a week,
we have that conversation. It's something we feel bad about it,
but we feel more like, okay, like this is a
decision we're making and it'll be fine. I guess it
just doesn't and things can change. It's a long season
right half of the season, but I think that's what
it is right now, the way I feel about this team,
and it goes back to your problem beginning. It's like, eh,
(29:08):
it feels to me like an above average team that
could finish I don't know, fourth or fifth. It doesn't
feel like a team to me where it's like yeah,
like I know we're underperforming, but it's going to get better.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
Wow, So much for my optimism, Mike. That really threw
some cold water.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
On my Well, hopefully I'm wrong. And I mean last year,
which one of us was more optimistic last year? I
don't remember. I know we were both like pretty at
this time last year. We were still pretty miserable.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
I don't know that's a good question. I think I
think we were both at this point in the season
last year. I think we were both like, well, we
will be competitive. But I do remember us having conversations like, look,
we it would just suck to be humiliated.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah, I think the autumn hundred you know, yeah, I
think that was a difference. I think last year was
the less sun embarrass ourselves, like, let let's try to like,
you know, finish five hundredth overall, and then when things
just kept getting better and better, like, well, let's let's
keep pushing. So I'm not giving up this year. Things
could turn around, Like, you know, Mark Bantos could have
(30:20):
twenty home runs in the first halfy Homer today, two
Bay's begun Aft threatened him. Shane Langlers has been really good.
I mean, I'm not going to rattle off every player,
but we we have We certainly have some highlights and
positive things in our team. I think what we need though,
to that point, is, you know, we need one or
(30:41):
two players like kind of like Carolyn Door did in
the second half last year, to excel, like we go
off and Jose Ramirez could obviously be that guy. Like
last year May, he hasn't done it this May, but
he could have that one month where at the end
of the month we're like, Okay, Jose Ramirez did Jseerrimerez
things like he you know, hit eleven home runs, he
stole a bases, he hit three fifty, Like we're not
(31:03):
surprised he's ose A Ramirez.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
I mean when I.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Look at the roster, what I what I think, and
maybe I'm just restating what you said in a different way,
is that we have too many sort of end of lineup,
top of bench players. Like I look at our bench
and I think it's it's pretty, it's it's good, and
you know, there I there are things I like about
(31:27):
all the all the I'm just talking about offense here,
but we have to end up starting, like, you know,
three or four of those players every week, where uh,
I just feel like they're they're low ceiling players. You're
Zach McKinstry's and your Brooks Leaves and players like that.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
So so I.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Don't know, I mean, it is it is funny that
you put it, you know, in a way that I
think sort of sums it up, is that like we're
doing much better at this point in the in the season.
But I think that that's also whereas last year we
saw so much space for improvement, and now optimism is
(32:10):
lower because we're like, well, what is the ceiling of
this team?
Speaker 1 (32:12):
You know what last year was? There's no way this
team is this bad. Like I don't know how good
it is, but there's no way this team is as bad.
And I think some of this comes from like our
combined experience last year of we've been doing this for
so long. If we're this wrong and this is a
team that's going to finish like in the bottom fifty overall,
like maybe we should hang it up before it and
(32:34):
we weren't. So this year. Yes, it's more like I
look at this team and I'm like, well, it could
get better, and I think it will, But I also
look at it, I'm like, well, this just might be
the team that we're looking at. It might it might
be I do'ly get better. I just don't know how
much better it'll get. Like I again, I if Blake
(32:55):
Snell comes back, given what he's like, I wouldn't be
surprised as we'd last year in the second half and
puts up like a one era and is ridiculous and
we're happy about him. It's just that he does it
in eighty to ninety innings, you know, like he did
last year close to it. It's like, well, okay, like
that's great, but it's not really gonna you know, push it.
But like hundred greeners like that to green Like, since
(33:17):
he's come back from his injury, and if you watched him,
he just doesn't look quite as good. I don't think
he's hurt. I think it's more that he was in
a rhythm before the before the injury, and now he
seems to have lost that rhythm. Can he get it back? Sure,
I'm just not confident that that he will.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Enough about us.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
The last thing I wanted so you brought up Kate Horton,
and I did just want to briefly touch on.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Something that you mentioned earlier, which is there are.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
There have been, you know, a number of players called
up to some moderate acclaim and fanfare. But I feel
like every week, just about every week in FAB, you know,
the sort of the Sunday night Fab, when we're that there,
there is this kind of.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
I don't know, maybe.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
This this unfounded optimism that the call up and I
think this happens more on the offensive side. But it's
been true of some pictures too, that that this call
up will be the difference maker. And I feel like
this year we've had a bunch of a handful of
call ups that are fine may or may not stick.
(34:34):
You know, the Nick kurtzs, the the Kate Horton's, you know,
Marcelo Mayor just was was called up to a lot
of fab high fab bids this weekend.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
So so the paradox, I guess is, or the challenge
is like, you don't want to be.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Unreasonable about, you know, putting all of your FAB on
one call up just because well, in this year, this
might be one of the top you know, three or
four callups of the season.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
But at the same time, you.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Don't want to just sort of exclude yourself from getting
any of those callups. So I feel like we put
a lot of our FAB resources towards Kate Horton, and
we got him, and he's been fine, But it just,
you know, I don't know, maybe you could talk a
little bit about that calculus of not over and you
(35:35):
wrote about this regarding Nick Kurtz, but not sort of
over projecting these these players who are new to MLB
and are going to go through all sorts of periods
of adjustment. It's very rare that someone comes up and
starts being a productive fantasy player from the jump. But like, also,
you don't want to get shut out on you know,
(35:56):
the entire season's worth of callups, right.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Yeah, So I think that the phenomenon here is, on
the one hand, it's really a matter of his Aulves
went you with FAB. It's really a matter of picking
your spots, so you can't I did this last year
in TGFBI. I ran a FAB in July, and probably
as I did it is I had a miserable draft
(36:19):
and I was trying to improve my team, and I
was bidding. It wasn't like I bid like nine hundred
dollars in somebody. It's more like I bid like one
hundred year, one hundred and fifty there, like you one
hundred and eighty there, And it was gone pretty quickly.
So you don't want to do that because you're going
to wind up in a position where you'll just run
out of money. And the other guys I got were
good too, It's just unfortunately you keep getting injuries, you
(36:41):
keep having needs, you keep wanting to stream a picture.
So that's part of it is that you don't want
to spend four hundred and fifty on Nick Kurtz because
unless he's like the one I was right to do
that with was Ellie de la Cruz the year he
came up, it's like, well, yeah, that was a good
move to spend half your fab for the whole season
on him, because he is tremendous. But for the most part,
(37:02):
you're not going to get that return. So that's the
one side of it is you're not going to get
that return. So spending thirty to forty percent of your
budget on Nick Kurtz to get like a solidly complimentary
corner infield or who's roster bone you should use, but
isn't going to like shoot up to the top ten
first basement or top ten corners. It's like, well, that's
kind of a waste versus. Yes. The other side of
(37:25):
it is you can't just sit on your pile of
cash all year and be like, well, I'm just going
to bid ten here or fifteen there and hope you
get lucky, and every once in a while you do,
like everyone in a while, you will get a player
where no one else bids or everyone's conservative, but really
would you wind up doing in that situation just running
out the same you know, crummy player or a couple
(37:46):
players on your active roster because you're not being aggressive enough.
So that's where the balance is, like you want to
make sure that you're spending aggressively enough that you're not like, well, oops,
you know, I didn't get this player to get that player,
versus being too timid where it's like, Okay, I'm running
my conforna out there week after week after week because
I'm just not being aggressive at all, and I'm like, well,
(38:09):
I guess he's, you know, not the guy I could
be bit on. Isn't that much better than Conforto? But
in reality, you're you're just taking essentially a bunch of
zero's in a bad average because because you're not doing enough.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I mean, I think Kurtz is instructive because you know,
he had all of the I mean, he was only
drafted last year, but he was a pretty polished college
hitter and was just crushing it in triple A to
start the season. You know, good on bass, good power,
(38:40):
and so you you know, a lot of the evidence
was there that he was going to come up and
be you know, somewhat productive, and he was okay, but
not not really I would say very borderline startable as
a CI because he was hitting for decent average but
no power. For I took him a few weeks, did
(39:02):
his first home run, and then he sort of took
off before he got injured a couple of days ago.
But I mean that's even in a best case scenario
or like an eighty percentile scenario, there's not going to
be instant.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Yeah, well in magic, I mean he's he's currently fortieth
among first basemen on the Fangress Player Raider, and that's
not completely fair because he has like half the plate
appearances of you know players up there the highest, and
these systems are weighted, you know, towards playing time, so
you know, just to kind of shift this over for
a second, the other two like really big bids were
(39:38):
also hitters. So to your point, like I think people
are really being more conservative with pitchers. Like a couple
of years ago we had all those big pitching bids.
We just haven't seen that this year. I think that's
where we kind of sort of screwed up on Whurt.
Not that we were way over. But unlike what years
in the past where people are going to have been
big at a pitcher and been big in a pitcher,
(39:59):
this year it's like, I'll bid, but I'm not going
to bid like two hundred. I'll bid one hundred or
one hundred and ten and I'll see if I get him.
So the other players that came through that were like
really big, and I think they're even more interesting. Augustine Ramirez,
he was one of the big players, and I think
and I have this up, so let let me go
(40:20):
back and look, I know that Nick Kurtz the week
he came through, Yeah, Ramirez, I was right. He was
the second biggest player that wee can TGFBI. He was
right behind him. Kurtz's average winning bid was three seventeen.
Ramirez was two forty two. And then the week before that,
and I'm sure you remember this was Chandler Simpson who
(40:42):
went for two thirty two. I think both these players
are more interesting and more instructive, and I probably not
that I have FOMO and regret like not going for them,
but I think in terms of your team needs and
your strategy, they were probably better players to get. So
Ramirez if you had a catching hole or if you
(41:03):
you know, drafted a week second catcher, if you had
an injury. He would have been a really nice guy
to kind of kind of slot in there. Like he's
he's twenty third overall among catchers, and that's with less
than a full season. Yeah, the average isn't great, but
he's got six runs, he's got a steel, he's been
kind of productive. I'd say if you took him, maybe
you're not like elated, but you can't really be disappointed,
(41:26):
right well, because.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
You were probably running out a pretty second catcher.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
So I think that's a difference. And I think the
reason that we weren't in on any of these players.
And we you know, we've been on Kurts for sure,
like but when we're we're close to him, we had
really had four solid corners because we have Wilmer floors
on our bench at the time, it was like really productive.
It was like, why are we going to add a
like put a big bit on a fifth corner who,
(41:51):
even if he is everything, isn't really much of an upgrade.
Simpson was kind of similar where it's like, well, sure
everybody and you speed, but that's not our biggest like
need or demand and to put a big bid on
Simpson and I have like a player kind of similar
Nico Horner, where he's mostly average in speed and runs,
doesn't really make a ton of sense for us. And
(42:13):
say that Ramirez where yeah, looking back, like you know,
maybe he would an Upgrand jt Real Muto, but doing
that didn't really intuitively seem to make a lot of sense.
But for some teams, and I'm glad you brought this up.
For some teams, taking Simpson if they had a big
hole in steels or taking Ramiras if they had a
big hole catcher made a ton of sense.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Right, Yeah, No, that's that's That's an interesting point to make,
is that you know your your fab bids are not
happening in a vacuum. You you are fitting them to
your team needs, and it just it was just kind
of like mismatched puzzle pieces for us. Whereas whereas in
a way that that maybe helped makes me feel better
(42:56):
about the bid on Horton, even though we you know,
by the the market, you know, by the second bid
in our league, you know, we overpaid, but we did
have the need, as you know, in starting pitching, So
it made sense for us to go bigger on someone
like that, and you can never tell I mean, you
(43:18):
know you had I didn't disagree when when you were
sort of arguing for a higher bid on on Horton,
well exactly because it was it was in need and
there was room in that rotation.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
We also, I mean, so there's two things. One, you know,
just specificly on Horton, we got him for one ay
eight and he went for one thirteen. So it wasn't
like we've been three hundred, like, it wasn't so far
ahead where it's like, oh, well that was really stupid.
It was like, well, we could have saved a little
bit of money, but we weren't like way off. And
then the other thing, and this is I think what's
always tough with bab is that it's really as much
(43:56):
as I say, well you should be strategic and not reactive,
et cetera, et cetera, it is kind of hard to
predict the future, right, Like, it is kind of hard
to be like, well, like five weeks from now, this
Bien like might look stupid because Snellim and I, Sean
and I are back and we don't need the pitching
and Horton's mediocre and we're not even using him every week.
It's just really tough to know those things. So you're
(44:18):
always trying to do the best with the information you
have in front of you, you know, as opposed to
being like, well, like I'm dumb, I'm constantly making mistakes.
And this sides back to earlier point. I'm like, well,
if that's a mentality, you're just not gonna be anybody.
You're gonna just constantly put a conservative bid, conservative, big
conservative bid. You're not anybody. Then in the year you'll
be like, yeah, I probably should have put one or
(44:38):
two moderate bids in there, just because you can't take
your fab with you.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
You cannot take your fab with you. I am actually
looking at I'm curious about where we are in So
we have we're we've all spent a little over half
our fab, right, yeah, and we are still we still
have the one to three or four fifth most fab
in a fifteen teen league.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
So yeah, it's kind of funny because that's the thing
that there's some teams and there's one team that has
like twenty four left, but our league, I feel, has
been not super aggressive, but fairly aggressive. So that's the thing,
Like we we still now that I think we're going
to be putting in like a two where three dollars
bid and three hundred particular ring player, but we sell
(45:24):
the money to like pick our slots, you know, to
kind of go in there and get some more players.
Like we are definitely not in a position where it's like, okay,
like we've got one hundred and fifty left, like we
have to save this money because if we don't and
we have injuries, we're we're just gonna be done at
the end of season. Like we we are not in
that position. So yeah, I think we still have some
(45:45):
some money to spend and we should be able to
keep making moves away. We've been making them, all right,
it's all I got. Okay, Well that's fine. Let's say
a wrap, let's pause and close out, and we'll finish up.
I'll try not to make a killer killer's pun and
(46:05):
we'll leave just we'll take a break, and you know,
I kind of did it by not doing it. We'll
take a break and come back. Thank you once again
(46:36):
for listening to episode three twenty nine of Flags Fly Forever,
a Baseball Perspective Fantasy Baseball podcast. I know we've been
gone for a while, but hopefully you've been reading the
wonderful content at Baseball Perspectives for all baseball, but particularly
fantasy baseball. Tim Jackson's A Stash List has been essential.
I'm not just saying that. I think I've picked up
(46:57):
like four or five players in my only leagues because
of some recommendations he makes, and I'm like, who is
this guy? The Deeply Landscape is another valuable piece, John,
No one did it better than you, but Ryan Boyer's
Fantasy Starting Pitcher Planner is still really good and is
a must read as well. So please, if you subscribe,
(47:18):
thank you. If you don't subscribe, what are you waiting for?
Please please do so. For Mike Challenge, John Hegeland, thank
you very much. Hopefully we'll be back sooner than two
months for our next podcast, and hopefully you hear this.
Speaker 3 (47:32):
Good night, everybody and m
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