2024 ATC Projections w/ Ariel Cohen! Underrated Targets & Overrated Fades | Fantasy Baseball Advice

Frank Stampfl and Chris Towers are joined by Ariel Cohen to discuss his ATC projections ahead of the 2024 season! Also, Jorge Polanco was traded to the Mariners and Justin Turner signed with the Blue Jays!

0:00- Intro
2:30- Corey Seager has surgery
6:28- Jorge Polanco traded
11:15- Justin Turner to the Blue Jays
16:02- Buehler’s season delayed?
22:53- What are ATC Projections?
35:44- Josh Naylor, Burger & Adames
45:30- Nimmo, Morel, Ward, Carpenter
49:42- Eflin, Bieber & Cortes
55:05- Players ATC is lower on

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Why do the ATC projections love Zack effin and hate Young Players let’s find out welcome in fantasy baseball today Frank and Chris here on Wednesday January 31st today on the show we’re talking ATC projections and we have some pretty big news to discuss Corey Seager had sports hernia surgery and there was

A trade not the biggest trade but a trade nonetheless so we’ll get to that in just a little bit you know if we’re talking projections we had to bring on a special guest he is the founder of the ATC projections host of the beat the shift podcast he contributes to Fang

Graphs Roto baller and that’s right CBS also hell of a pickle ball player welcome to the show Ariel con what’s up Ariel oh thanks so much for that warm welcome I’m most proud of the pickle ball of course yeah yeah uh I played pickle ball with Ariel a couple weeks

Ago not the best decision you know brought him around some of my friends who are you know still kind of beginner level and Ariel’s just out here just Crush smacking everybody around not the nicest thing Ariel it’s fine oh good you a couple of nice friends who was nice to

Hang out with you and get some exercise you know yeah and look little quick aside on the pickleball thing don’t knock it till you try it because I know I see a lot of criticism out there and oh it’s for old people if you play a

Competitive game of pickle ball I will I I have look I’m I’m not a reink that I’m not opposed to playing pickle ball when I see it on TV and I watch it it’s not the most exciting uh viewing experience I will say that’s that’s all I can’t dispute

That it is really fun to play anyway big congrats to Ariel not only were you just nominated for Fantasy Baseball writer of the Year by the fantasy sports writers association but the ATC projections were ranked as the most accurate projections in the industry for the fifth year in a

Row so there is no better time to have you on not only to talk about projections in general but specifically to talk about these ATC projections yeah just just show off your feathers you know this is your time spread the wings and fly baby well glad to be on the show

It’s nice to be back and uh talk some baseball yeah let’s get into it shout out to Scott by the way he was nominated for Fantasy Baseball article of the year and uh to our five minute podcast how about that fbt and5 which was nominated for best short form video look at us

Chris look at us we made it we made it all right let’s get into theate news and notes we will start with Corey Seager who underwent surgery for a sports hernia on Tuesday the injury first occurred in the postseason which makes his World Series MVP and just his

Postseason in general even that much more impressive but for those wondering why he didn’t have surgery right after the season ended the initial thought was that rest would be the best remedy for Corey Seager the Rangers are hopeful he’ll be ready for opening day according to my extensive medical research sports

Hernia surgery typically takes anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks to recover uh so opening day is just about eight weeks away you know it’s definitely up in the air at this point Chris I don’t want to overreact but I have lowered Seager in My overall rankings I moved him down

From 17th to 26th in Roto I moved him down from ninth to 16th in head-to-head points what say you yeah so I’m looking uh on baseball perspectus as injury tool and last season if you remember uh Randall gritch started the season on the ilil after undergoing sports hernia

Surgery and uh it was about two weeks later in the timetable uh he had his or it was at least reported on February 14th he did not play in a game until April 29th so you know you apply that same timetable and look every player’s different every surgery is different all

All those caveats it would imply a couple of weeks into the season so I there’s a chance he’s ready for opening day but I think the thing you have to keep in mind is injuries are really hard to predict they are slightly less difficult to predict for a player like Cory Seager

Who seems to have something every year so that was already being baked into his projection and you can already you can say oh well great he got it out of the way it’s not really how it works though so like what if you’re projecting him

For 135 games out of 162 and he misses the first two weeks of the Season at least my perspective would not be well we’ll just take those 14 games he’s GNA Miss at the beginning of the season and subtract that from the 27 we projected and he’s good like that I would still

Expect Cory seager’s chances of suffering an injury would be higher than the norm the average player and that’s especially true coming back from a surgery so I I moved him down like the 37 38 range of my rankings overall I believe um let me confirm 38 right ahead

Of Michael Harris right behind Jose Altuve which that feels like a pretty good range like that those are very good players who altuve’s got his own injury concerns given his age and recent history um so I I don’t know but it was about a 15ish 20ish I think 20ish spot

Drop in the rankings for me yeah I mean look that’s obviously not nothing and we’ll see how the market reacts here as well Ariel I noticed that ATC had Seager projected for around 137 games kind of baking in the fact that he usually misses time with at least one

Isent per year do you foresee the projections pulling this down even further now after the sports hernia surgery yeah I think think a touch I think it’s going to go down uh in my next iteration of ATC we’ll see what that does but uh yes part of it was

Baked in and part of that will definitely go down as well I’m interested to see how it affects the Texas lineup uh will there be less RBI opportunities for the rest of the squad we might see that and always to remind you if you’re playing in a league with

Playoffs well his value should not go down in fact it could be a buying opportunity if others take his value down all right we had a pretty decent sized trade I would say the Mariners they can only go so long without making a trade Chris and here they are they acquired Jorge palanco

From the twins in exchange for four players uh two Major Leaguers reliever Justin toppa and Anthony D gani and two prospects Gabriel Gonzalez and Darren Bowen let’s start with palano who will step in as the Mariners starting second baseman he’s now 30 years old still a productive player but has had major

Issues staying on the field he’s missed 140 games over the past two years dealing with recurring left knee and left hamstring injuries it’s also on paper it looks like a pretty rough Park shift going from Target Field which is right around League average in offensive Park factor to T-Mobile Park in Seattle

Which is dead last uh the expected home runs by Parker it’s kind of weird how they like calculate that he he would have had 14 if all of his games were in Minnesota last year but 19 in Seattle so do with that information what you will

It’s a solid real life baseball move for the Mariners but Chris palano is kind of an afterthought and fantasy right now his ADP is 271 should that be the case I can’t say it it should go too much higher but it seems like a decent

Value to me this is someone who you know when he’s on the field last season he played 80 games had 14 home runs 48 RBI had a 789 Ops like there’s been some decline from that 2019 2021 Peak for Jorge palano but he’s still a pretty

Good player he makes a decent amount of contact that tends to lead to you know highish RBI totals relative to his overall production so I I’m perfectly fine with with making him a late round uh Target it’s staying healthy has been a big concern for him as well so I I

Don’t think this injury or this trade changes how I’m viewing him but it just it’s one of those where it serves as a reminder like oh yeah don’t forget about that guy yeah I think he could be a solid player if he manages to stay on

The field it’s kind of a pseudo contract year I think he has there’s an option involved at the end of this year it might be a player option I think it’s a player option for like 12 million right so we’ll see what happens if he could

Stay on the field but in terms of quality of contact Jorge palano last year career-high 13.8% Barrel rate second highest among second basemen with at least 200 batted balls so uh still does have some pop now can he stay on the field on the Twin Side of Things

Edward Julian will slide over to second base with Alex Koff at first base whenever he’s healthy uh and this does open up more playing time for Willie Castro who is somewhat interesting he’s 26 years old last year he hit 257 nine homers 33 steals in only 124 games his

ADP is outside of the top 300 Ariel any interest in the twins side here Edward Julian Alex kof Willie Castro yeah I think it bumps up everybody Julien now gives him a shot at maybe getting 500 at bats for the year uh Willie Castro I had

Him on a lot of rosters midseason last year very Dynamic and he has dual eligibility as third base and Outfield so if you’re drafting in a league he might be a very versatile bench player now that could gain some value and I’ll throw out another name that I think

Could gain Nick Gordon he’s been pretty interesting he has maybe 10 10 maybe 1515 upside depending upon playing time he’s gotten some advance in in the past um he might see some some increase time because of this and of course you know Alex carof could get injured at any time

So that would open up more playing time too uh so Nick Gordon a name to pocket in some deeper deeper leagues they’re probably is not another lineup in baseball that has more injury concerns than the Minnesota Twins Just year-over-year Roy Lewis has struggled to stay on the field obviously Carlos

Kareah Byron buckton Byron buckon is going to stay healthy it’s great the a for mentioned starting center fielder we’ll see but look obviously things can open up so yeah if you play in a deer League I think Nick Gordon could be a name to remember Anthony D

Cleani provides some depth to a rotation that currently includes Chris Paddock and Louis Varin so probably going to need that depth at some point I would imagine two twins prospects to keep an eye on Brooks Lee and Austin Martin they now have an easier pass to the majors

And both are former first round picks so big upside with either one and I do think there’s a chance we could see either both at some point this year for the Minnesota Twins lastly Gabriel Gonzalez seems like a pretty damn good Prospect 20 years uh 20-y old outfielder

I think it’s a really nice get by the Minnesota Twins in this deal one DH of the many has finally been scooped up Justin Turner signed a one-year $13 million deal with the Toronto Blue Jays Turner is entering his age 39 season but proves he still has some juice left last

Year he hit 276 with 23 homers 86 runs 96 RBI he finished as a top 60 player in Roto and averaged 3.1 fantasy points per game great season overall uh it was the perfect situation for Turner who was in Fenway Park obviously the green monster it’s a great place to hit for

Right-handed batters he now heads to Roger Center in Toronto where offense was down in 2023 following their new renovations I don’t know if that’s just like a small sample blip if it’s something that’s going to carry over but for the one year that we had these Renovations in that ballpark offense did

Not really play well Chris you’ll get the first word here what do you think about the fit Justin Turner to the Toronto Blue Jays you are muted Sir Classic one thing that I that I would keep an eye on with Turner was he was playing through a bone bruise in his

Heel at the end of last season it was one of those like he probably shouldn’t have been playing but he wanted to tough it out and there were a bunch of quotes where he said uh something like you know if if if I’m able to play I’m gonna play

You know I want to put out a a good I want to make a good impression for the young players and all that stuff so like he was really bad towards the end of last season that might have had something to do with it yet the Counterpoint to that would be he

Suffered the injury at the end of July he had a great August and then had a terrible September so I don’t know how much of it to put on that but I I think he’s definitely still got some juice left he’s a very boring player because

He’s 39 years old and anyone over 27 is boring in the fantasy baseball community’s eyes but yeah I think he’s still a useful Corner infielder who once the season starts like he’s a viable first or third baseman in a lot of situations it’s just you’re not going

You’re not going to and you won’t have to draft him that high to take advantage of it the only thing with Justin Turner Chris I know you mentioned first and third he only has first base El to start there’s a chance he could gain Third Base I was watching MLB Network earlier

There’s they said there’s a chance Turner could get some starts at first third just to kind of give some guys days off but obviously will mostly be the DH for the Toronto Blue Jays Justin Turner’s nfbc ADP is 252 and Ariel I I’ve been targeting Turner in some of

These early drafts that I’ve done draft and hold formats where you get him this late as either your corner or utility because he provides solid batting average and pop later on in the draft you know at that point it’s not the easiest thing to find someone that

Can hit 265 270 Plus without hurting you in other places so I actually really like the cost it’ll be interesting to see where it goes from here and he had 96 RBI last year he’s a guy that he finishes as a top 60 player and his ADP

Goes down year over-year I love these kinds of players nobody wants him I don’t know why um I mean he’s returned I’ll give you the auction equivalent values in 15 teamers for the last three years $22 $159 he’s going for an auction equivalent of three um I mean how is it

Not profit he can play for half a year and still be profitable yeah sorry Frank you said like oh he’ll hit 260 260 270 you want to know the last time Justin Turner hit below 275 it’s probably five years years ago more more 2012 wow the last time

Justin Turner hit below 275 Mitt Romney was running for president the last time he hit worse than 260 was never yeah yeah crazy stuff there so we’ll see look normally it’s been weird with you know some nfbc ADP markets sometimes they wait for players to sign and then the

ADP goes up I mean a lot of these guys we know that they’re going to play somewhere and they’re going to have a job so he’ll probably get a little bit of a bump but probably not enough of a bump and you know I do think uh Justin

Turner is a nice name to Target there in deeper leagues let’s take our first break when we return We also got some news on Walker Bueller we’ll do that right after this to a to that I became a to be able to that I became a world champion that’s something that you remember

Forever welcome back in let’s talk about Walker ber who not so great right now the Dodgers are considering delaying Walker bu’s season debut as they look to manage his workload coming off his second Tommy John surgery apparently Dave Roberts had this to say about Walker bu quote he’ll

Be ready to go in spring training but when we decide to make his debut in 2024 is going to be determined whether it’s the first week or a month later we’re going to kind of wait see how spring goes apparently Robert said that back in December I’m not exactly sure why we’re

Only kind of hearing about it now or it’s coming to the surface Chris should we react to something like this because look ber was probably projected to miss time anyway right if you look at projections there it’s like 130 140 Innings so he was going to miss time at

Some point it’s just kind of unfortunate when you know that time could potentially be at the beginning of the Season yeah it’s it’ll be harder like if we get to March and he’s not like stretched out all the way it it’ll be harder to to jump on him but like when

You’re going 110th you know you look at at some of the guys around him and like okay Dylan sees zero injury concerns beyond the fact that he throws hard and he’s a pitcher after that the pitcher going off the board Joe Musgrove Cole Reagan Justin Verlander Sunny Greg well

Sunny gray I guess doesn’t have a lot of injury concerns but the other three guys there quite a few workload Innings performance concerns that’s the stretch at starting pitcher where you kind of expect that there are going to be some ws and and I’ll I’ll look back to 2019

If you remember there were similar concerns for Walker be if you remember they didn’t stretch him out in spring training it was a deliberate Choice he didn’t end up throwing 90 pitches in a start until April 17th you know it could be something like that now I would guess

It’s going to be a little later than that and there are going to be times throughout the season where they skip starts and you know that’s going to be true I think of a lot of pitchers on the Dodgers so I think downgrading him is potentially an overreaction given how

Good he could be although I do have some performance concerns um but where he’s going probably doesn’t need to change too much I wouldn’t think I do have some questions about Walker ber because if you remember last year he was ramping up for a late season return he pitched I

Think one or two innings in the minor and then immediately stopped and the Dodgers just kind of said nope we’re not doing this let’s put it off until spring training next year it just kind of feels like maybe something happened I don’t know I could be reading it into it a

Little bit too much ATC projections have ber as the S 50 projected for 133 Innings he’s currently the sp29 in nfbc ADP Ariel my guesses after this news ber will probably drop down ADP at least a little bit how much that that we remains to be seen yeah he’ll

Drop down a little bit in ADP he’ll also drop down in projected value with the news coming out uh I mean I have reservations about anybody on the Dodgers to be honest with you like sh Otani um is he gonna get full playing time are they gonna Rush him back right

Away um tiasa Hernandez is he gonna get playing time they might save him for the playoffs anybody on the Dodgers I just have concerns that they’re going to be extra extra cautious and bu hasn’t been healthy recently to me it’s too high a spot to pick somebody a pitcher you want

A nice and solid investment when you’re around your sp50 um I would take a chance on somebody else and not take the risk of BU because honestly you don’t know exactly the story we’re just finding out bits and pieces now yeah I had ber at sp30 in my rankings I updated

Some things on Tuesday I dropped him down to sp39 just behind Joe Ryan Bailey obber and Carlos Ordon who obviously has his own injury concerns uh but not far off from where you were originally Chris I know you were lower on ber you had him

Around SP 35 so I kind of just got him down to where you had him maybe even a little bit below that so we’ll see what happens if berer does Miss time early on Gavin Stone and EMT shean were mentioned as names that could step in and

Personally I do think that shean has some breakout potential if given the opportunity old friend Aaron Hicks signed a one-year deal with the angels and before we just collectively scoff at this Hicks was pretty good with the Orioles last year 65 games Baltimore 275 batting average seven homers six Steals

And 806 Ops roster resource currently has Aaron Hicks as the smalls side platoon with Mickey moniac the Pirates announced Tuesday that Paul skem the first overall pick in last year’s draft has received an invitation to Major League spring training and if he’s not up on opening day he should be up early

In the season a generational pitching Prospect everything we’ve heard is best pitching Prospect coming out of college since uh Steven strawber so do with that what you will reys Hoskins said Monday that he expects to be a full go at the beginning of Spring training he missed

The entire 2023 season due to a torn left ACL and signed with the Brewers last week Carlos karea said over the weekend that he quote started turning the curve it’s kind of a weird way to phrase it I guess he meant turning the corner but uh he is turning the curve

With the recovery from his left foot injury in mid to late December big actual baseball news the Angelos family has reportedly sold the Baltimore Orioles to a pair of private Equity billionaires for 1.72 billion dollar I’m not sure how quickly we’ll feel the impact of this

But if the Orioles decide to spend money at some point this offseason like on pitching for example like a Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery or anyone like that then yeah I think they could be pretty damn dangerous I mean they’re already going to be dangerous but it’s just kind

Kind of feels like they need a little bit more pitching so uh we’ll see if that if we feel that effect right away here with the Baltimore orial quick few things to promote our first mailbag will be out later this week and we have a new segment Prospect Spotlight if you have a

Top prospect you’d like us to evaluate leave a fstar rating on Apple and drop the prospect’s name in a review we’ll choose one Prospect to highlight in each of our mailbags and you could also send your questions to our email address thank Fantasy Baseball cbs.com cbsi the letter

I.com make sure to sign up for the fantasy baseball today newsletter Chris has a great job with it sends you a bunch of information and articles right to your inbox for free head to CBS sports.com newsletters click on the fbt logo punch in your email address it’s as

Easy as that let’s talk about what we were meant to talk about today ATC projections again statistically objectively the most accurate in the business over the past 5 years Ariel I’ll throw it your way you can let people know what are ATC projections where can we find them how do we use

Them for Fantasy so the ATC projections are a smart aggregation system where I blend many other projections are available uh plus some history uh some three-year history together in a smart way so I’m not just taking a straight average of them I give more weight to what projections do best if a certain

Projection is great at at predicting homers I give more weight to that if another one is better at predicting pitcher strikeouts they get more weight in that model and I have a model for every single statistic you can imagine here uh and by doing this ATC minimizes

Parameter risk uh which is why it’s been the most accurate over the past five years so you you’ll never get an outsize projection oh my God Aaron judge is going to hit 70 home runs you’ll never see that but what ATC does does is uh it

Gives you a very good byass signal if a player that ATC undervalues um you won if um you’ll see better buy percentages better hit rates I should say for players at ATC signals as a good buy and better um not hit rates right less failure better failure

Rates I should say for uh players that ATC says is wrong you can see ATC right here on CBS Sports Line you can actually get it in a downloadable Google sheet really handy so be a subscriber to Sportsline it’s also available on fangraphs Roto baller and big announcement now it’s going to be

Available on RotoWire starting uh starting tomorrow so check it out RotoWire for ATC projections uh definitely use them I I I like you Frank I go to the fangraphs auction calculator plug in your league settings right if you have a three outfielder League versus five outfielder League put in

Exactly what you do in your league um select ATC projections and it’ll spit out a ranking of all the players and actually dollar value so you can see just how much better a player is for the next yeah and I I cannot stress how valuable that tool is so go to Fang

Grass.com if you hover over the projections tab on the top you’ll see something on the bottom of uh that drop down it’ll say auction calculator you click on that and like RL said you punch in your league settings and from any type of categories if you’re playing a

Points League system you can customize it to set up the points however you want and it spits out a dollar value based on like what these players are projected to do by ATC and it’s really really valuable especially when you go through the auction calculator it has nfbc ADP

On the same page so it’s so easy to see all right well this player’s ranked higher and uh the ADP is much lower then uh that is someone that you should be targeting it’s like a very clear bargain so um I would say Obviously use that

Tool I use it a lot it’s not obviously the basis for all of my rankings but it is something that I like to use personally myself which brings us to another kind of talking point here Ariel why are projections so important I mean I’m sure you get asked some version of

This question I mean we talk about it every single year and normally Scott’s here to tell us why he hates proje he uses rankings and obviously there’s a debate of a fantasy analyst rankings versus projections but if you think about it and Scott I think has made this argument when we’re ranking players

We’re kind of coming up with a projection in our head right we’re kind of trying to figure out all right what is this player going to do is that better than the player that’s ahead of him the player that’s behind him and so we’re just kind of weighing those things

Anyway and for me personally like when I’m making my rankings It’s a combination of projections ADP just my notes and things that you know I have have looked up throughout the course of the offseason so that’s what goes into like my rankings anyway but that’s a long

Winded question long way of asking Ariel why are projections so important for Fantasy Baseball yeah I mean it’s statistically the best guest it’s the betting average right if you want to bet on what the uh what’s going to be you might as well um bet on what has

Transpired to be the best right uh look there’s always going to be flaws and there’s going to be blind spots in projections right projections what they don’t do well is if there was a significant pitch pitch Mix Change for or let’s say a hitter uh changed his swing developed some real different

Skill right if there’s a new skill that you just don’t see in the data it does it badly let’s say last year a player played through an injury projections aren’t going to see that right but assuming everything is not it is mathematically the best thing so the

Right way to use projections is you start with projections get the ATC ranks and then you use your own intuition and say wait a minute this guy changed his swing he’s going be better than that projection bump him up right start with the base of projections work off of that

And then use your own eye for things that you know that the projections don’t know right don’t all of a sudden say oh this guy is the the the 10th best pitcher right start with a projection that’s calculated by the computer and say no no but this guy he’s gonna he’s

Throwing his slider more he’s gonna have more strikeouts than projected and do the math yourself Chris where do you lie on uh projections do are they a big fact when your rankings Players in your process how do you feel about projector it’s a huge factor for for me a part of

It is just like Ariel Cohen’s really smart he’s much smarter than I am and he like I can fake my way through an Excel spreadsheet okay but he’s got like real tools and and knows like I don’t know the word regression and stuff like I I’m I’m I’m okay you

Know I’ll fake my way through sounding smart but like I want to rely on the best tools available now I think the the thing to keep in mind though is uh I found this tweet from uh Dan Dan zimorski I believe is how you pronounce his name from fan graphs smart guy the

Zip system is his projection system and I I really love one thing that he tweeted back in November it’s his pin tweet on Twitter um and what he did was he went through the zips percentile rankings which is one thing that I really love about that projection system

And uh baseball perspectus as well they do like what does a player’s 10th percentile outcome look like what does a player’s 90th percentile outcome and and what he did was he went and looked through last years and found that 49% of players exceeded their 50th percentile

Outcome in erra plus and 51% of hitters exceeded their 50th percentile outcome uh in Ops plus that’s exactly what you would expect from a well-tuned but it also points out that 50% of players beat their projection and 50% 50% of players didn’t so that’s the thing that you have

To keep in mind with projections is they’re going to it’s I don’t even think it’s right to say they’ll fail to identify outliers outliers are just that they’re outli they’re doing something unexpected and the thing about fantasy baseball is you need outliers you need outliers on your team you need to avoid

Outliers the other way that’s the whole the the the blending of Art and Science I I think when you’re Drafting and building a team is trying and often failing to identify who those outliers are going to be and that’s why we do sleepers and breakouts and bus that like these are all industry

Terms for effective what projections are or are not trying to identify and so you need to find guys who are going to beat the market and sometimes projections will help you do that because there will just be a guy like Justin Turner who is underrated for bad reasons I don’t know if that’s

The right way to phrase it but just like he seems pretty clearly undervalued for reasons that have to do with biases and and just our kind of anti- old guy biases and all that but you you don’t you probably don’t want to just well here’s the projection I’m

Going to draft in that order because there are there are swings that you need to take there are swings you need to know not to take um and so I I think you have to keep all of those things in mind and and that’s why it’s it’s Art and Science it’s sooth saying

It’s it’s uh Alchemy to a certain degree when you’re talking about building a fantasy team and real quick Ariel and then you can touch on that I think a really interesting way I try to think of it this way and I think you do too Ariel is you don’t need necessarily that

Player that’s going to provide you the5 $20 in exess right Ronald auna Who provided $70 worth of value in a 12 team League last year obviously it’s nice to have that player on your team but if you can over the course of 60 to 75 uh

Percent of the players on your team if you can gain a three to five profit on each of those players then you’re probably doing pretty damn good and I think that’s kind of a way that I try to look at it Ariel I don’t know if that’s

What you were gonna say but um it’s it’s kind of a way I try to look at Players like from a profit potential kind of mindset yeah you want to you have 23 roster spots you want to turn a profit even if it’s small on every single spot

And those little profits turn up to a big aggregate profit look some spots you’re going to get a lot of profit profit some spots you’re going to get a loss but on average you want to you want to get there the thing I want to point

Out though is that I think that people are so wrapped up with the magnitude of success oh I want to find that guy that’s gonna have 62 home runs the truth of the matter is that it’s less important to get the magnitude right and more important to get the hit rate right

You want to be correct directionally on more players than not because if you’re correct on a player and you buy the player it really doesn’t matter if he turns a $10 profit $20 profit $50 profit you’re going to realize the entire upside right if you thought a player was

Worth $7 and you bought him for two if he ends up being worth 30 you realize just the same because you’ve already bought him right you said undervalued buy doesn’t matter how much you get the whole upside so you’re gonna randomly find guys that have huge upside and some

Upside when you take a projection system which is really good at the hit rates and identifying stay away from these guys these are profit losers the more hits you have you’ll end up having some of those big ones some of the small ones and you’ll be directionally more so

Don’t focus on the magnitude focus on getting more players directionally correct lastly Ariel regarding just macro level view of the ATC projection I I think many people would be interested in learning about how it factors in environmental changes in the game right so last year obviously Ste Steels were

Up in a crazy way organic offense was up there was just base runners as a result erra and whip was also up across the league how does ATC factor in environmental changes year-over-year oh that’s the hardest thing is to guess where the environment is going to be I

Mean projections rely on things being the same sure if you think that steals going to be up just take everything and scale things up question of course do you scale everybody evenly do you scale only the top players right there’s different ways to do it for homers of

Course you know when you had the the juice bu it wasn’t the guys who hit shot hit Moon shots it was the guy who had were just to the fence those were the ones that gained the most so it’s not it’s a little bit complicated on how to

Do uh but we try our best in terms of where we think the growth would be all right let’s take our final break when we return we’ll finally get what you wanted to hear we’re going to talk about which players ATC is higher on and lower on

We’ll do that right after this will you need your sports news anywhere we’ve got breaking news to bring you then get your sports anytime you want them big trade news overnight to discuss because we know you need Sports all the time a lot of movement in the rankings this week a

Legend adds to their legacy we’re bringing you that breaking news right here on HQ CBS Sports HQ anywhere anytime all the time welcome back in let’s talk players that ATC projections are higher on entering the 2024 season Josh Naylor is first up and Josh Naylor is an interesting one because ATC was also

Higher on Josh Naylor last year I remember it vividly I think I was on your corner infield episode of the beat the shift podcast so his name just kind of stands out in my mind but he was very good and he was projected uh is currently projected as the 10th best

First baseman this upcoming season ahead of names like Yandy Diaz Tristan casus Spencer torlon the ATC projection 283 batting average 22 homers 88 RBI and eight steals Josh Naylor coming off a great year he improved versus left-handed pitching he makes a ton of contact and he chips in a little bit of

Speed after first base the downside Ariel is that Naylor has not played more than 122 games in her Major League season he hasn’t hit the ball particularly hard either but the fact that he makes as much contact as he does it feels like that’s something the projections would really like about him

Yeah he has 86% contact rate I mean that gives you a high floor of production where he’s getting on base I mean he batted 308 last year he’s going to have a lot of rbi’s I like the guys to get on base uh who are playing on his team you

Got Steven Quan Jose Ramirez these are guys who get on base so he I mean he had 97 RBI in limited time last year I think that he could push that 100 very very possible um you know he’s he’s a guy that just has a presence in every single

Category and I think the comp is Paul gmid he sort of feels like a Paul gmid type of stats across the board that you’re getting a lot cheaper than him so uh I really like him for this year and Josh Naylor it feels like he’s been around forever he’s still only 26 years

Old right I mean it kind of feels crazy that he’s just kind of entering the prime of his career now Chris based on the skill set Josh Taylor is a player that should theoretically excel in both formats too both in Roto and head head points yeah because he doesn’t strike

Out much and then that’s one thing when you look at the RBI and you say well he’s not going to drive in 97 runs in 121 games again well one thing to keep in mind is that historically High contact guys do tend to perform better in whatever you

Want to toine it high leverage situations Runners on base that that’s that’s a skill set that tends to perform better and you think of someone like Jose Abu who at his Peak look he had a lot more power than Josh Naylor I don’t think Josh Naylor’s gonna you know did

Did Jose Ramirez or Jose BR win an MVP in 2020 am I remembering that correctly uh like that’s not gonna happen but because he’s a high contact rate hitter who has some pop you know pretty good pop he’s going to be a good source of r

Like Ariel said you know he had 79 in 122 games that’s a 100 RBI Pace over 150 games so that’s one skill where if you’re look it’s always hard to do like category specialists in RBI because if you get a lot of RBI you’re going to get

A lot of home runs and runs and all the other things generally Naylor is a guy who specifically projects to help more in RBI than you would otherwise think given his overall value and skill set and probably batting average too which yes as you’ll for anyone who’s on a

Draft yet you’ll learn you know if you don’t get batting average early it’s kind of hard to find Josh naor is one of those names in the middle rounds that could provide batting average let’s slide over to Jake Burger who is projected as the 11th best third baseman

By ATC ahead of names like Spencer Seer and Hung Kim the projection for Burger 250 batting average 31 homers 82 RBI I am completely on board with this one I have Burger in breakouts 1.0 currently live on the site once he was traded to Miami made big strides in terms of plate

Discipline he hits the ball as hard as anybody in baseball and I know we just did a mock draft uh the other night Ariel and you wound up with Jake Burger he is a name I pretty interested in yeah the guy that I was debating all the time

Was uh Kyle schwarber who was on my queue do I draft him and wait a minute I can get Jake Burger who is pretty much going to hit 35 to 40 homers potentially but not have that 220 batting average that schwarber has and I mean it’s not

Fantastic 250 but I’ll take 35 homers with just a 250 average uh I mean Adam Dunn used to do this uh he now Adam Dunn would walk More Than Jake Berger but I mean Adam Dunn would have the 220 240 average and he did 40 homers Jake

Burgher could be something like that and he’s made improvements in terms of his uh contact skills he dropped for the season below 28% and actually was much better in the second half so his his values I think will be determined based on his runs and RB will the Marlins put

Enough people on base for him to have the the gy uh run production totals but otherwise the skills are great and he’s going at a nice price Chris Jake Berger of your Miami Marlins one big beefy baseball boy I think projecting the shape of the production might be a

Little tough like are we gonna get more of the player we saw in Miami or we going to get this player we saw in the with the white socks but either way I feel like it’s going to work out even if it’s a little bit less power but higher

Batting average or less batting average and more power I feel pretty confident it’s going to work out for Jake Berger I I think that’s a good way to think about it and and it reminds me a little bit of um you know where I was on Sandy Al

Contra before the 2022 season where it’s like there’s a a feels like a pretty safe floor because of the skill set and if you know in Burger’s case if the improvements that he made as a contact hitter once he got to Mii stick well there’s a high ceiling too I I like that

Combination where things probably won’t go too wrong for him obviously we can’t predict everything perfectly the weird thing about him was just like he it’s not like the this the Improvement in the contact rate he swung more especially at pitches in the strike zone and he made

More contact on pitches in the strike zone those were the big changes that he made his his out of Zone contact rate his Chase rate all that stuff kind of stayed the same I don’t know what to make of that right like because he didn’t swing at the

First pitch more often it wasn’t like he got to Miami and they were like you’re seeing a lot of fast balls on the first pitch jump on him it wasn’t like you know he wasn’t getting pitched in the strike zone more often so I I struggle with how sticky those improvements are

Going to prove to be but the fact that he was able to do that without sacrificing much in quality of contact it does give us tangible proof of what the upside could look like there’s a really cool story too regarding Jake burer apparently his wife noticed something in his batting stance

And brought it up to him while he was still on the white socks which kind of fueled the start of the adjustments that Jake Burger wound up making and look if anyone wants to check it out just Google you know Jake Burger adjustments and there are multiple articles about it but

It’s pretty cool you know your your wife helping you out at being a major league player it’s pretty awesome stuff uh Willie adamus is next up here projected as the 14th best shortstop ahead of names like Anthony vulpi and Tommy Edmond the projection 237 batting average 26 homers 85 RBI and seven

Steals adamus had a Down Season last year um there’s no doubt about that but I do feel like we might be writing him off a bit too soon we were excited about adamus last year his ADP was just inside the top 100 now his ADP is down at 185

So we’re getting a pretty big difference in cost year-over-year the expected numbers still look pretty pretty good he’s entering a contract year Ariel what kind of things do you like about Willie Adamas yeah he’s the kind of player that had a really good year in 2022 so price

Went up down year last year now of course his price is down well you want to be buying players who are better than their previous year not the opposite right you don’t want to pay for the previous year’s uh value so he is Falls in that category and if you look deep he

Was unlucky last year his babit was terribly low but he improved his skills the strikeout rate went down his walk rate went way up so there’s a lot of good things that he’s improved and I still think he has that 30 home run ability right he had 31 homers in 2022 I

Think it’s still there he has a Bas in bunch of categories hopefully that batting average will come up and that solid base of runs and RBI is still there uh people forget runs and RBI are two- fifths of your rodo categories they’re really important so he’s got a

Base everywhere skills are improving and you’re buying him at a count because he had down year that’s why I like him for this coming year Chris I’m not sure that I would want Willie adamus as my starting short stop but at pick 185 you can probably get him as your middle

Infielder and that doesn’t sound too bad yeah I I like that a lot you know you look at the the underlying data mostly suggests that he was a very similar hitter in 2023 to 2022 you know the the hard contact rate the barrel rate all that stuff the the strikeout

Rate actually on a three-year downward Trend which is a you know I don’t know how important that is that it’s a trend but it’s not moving in the wrong direction so I I do think like a 217 batting average last year I think he probably just got a little bad luck on

On his Ledger and he’s probably more like a 240 hitter and 25 homers with a 240 average is a lot easier to stomach um so yeah I’m I’m fully on board with that one yeah 217 batting average for Willie adamus last year 242 expected batting average according to stat cast

Ariel I’m going to throw four outfielders your way the way we could do this is you can choose one of these names to highlight you can quickly touch on each one of them if you want to however you want to approach it that’s fine by me Brandon nmo maybe a little

Personal tweaking involved here I know you’re a Mets fan so maybe you kind of boosted up Brandon nmo a little bit projected as the 30th outfielder according to ATC Christopher Morell at number 31 Taylor Ward as your 37th out outfielder and kry Carpenter at as the 41st outfielder all four are ahead of

ADP nmo Morel Taylor Ward Carri Carpenter yeah I’m gonna go with Taylor Ward for the same type of reason that great year in 22 down year in 23 um even though he made some improvements in his game and again a little bit of bad luck

With the babip um he’s got the skills to hit 20 to 25 homers throws in some steals I think his batting average can get close to 270 once again and I know otani’s not in the lineup anymore but I think there’s still a good base of runs

And RB’s the other guys are pretty good too but I think Ward could be some sneaky value and there’s some upside um the ATC inter projectional skew shows that he’s got some upside to the numbers that ATC already project so I like Ward yeah and you know most people will look

At someone like Taylor Ward he’s on the Angels they’re not projected to be a particularly good team in 2024 but what that does do it it allows for playing time so it’ll you know there’s not much competition because there’s just not that many great players so Taylor Ward

Could stay on the field I think that those are the same reasons why projections love Brandon Drury Luis Ren heo I mean these guys have multi-position eligibility and they’re going to play because they’re on a bad team so it might hurt the counting stats but I think it does help with the

Playing time uh Chris we do have you know two names here nmo and Ward they kind of feel like the Steady Eddy types I Ariel just argued there is upside with Taylor Ward Christopher Morell and kri Carpenter they’re younger they’re you know kind of have some breakout appeal

Uh anyone that stands out to you from this group of four that you might be targeting nmo Morel Ward Carrie Carpenter uh Nemo’s ADP is like or sorry uh Carpenter’s ADP is super low right yeah I can pull roughly yeah I I got I got confused because I I thought we were

I someone mentioned Brandon jury and I I really like Brandon jury I thought we were talking about him so he was going to be my pick if he was part of it I I think Carrie carbiner has some really nice skills though I think he’s shown the ability to consistently hit the ball

Hard the biggest question there is one can he hit lefties and then will the Tigers let him play against lefties he only had 78 plate appearances last year against them the overall line 657 Ops wasn’t particularly good but like he didn’t strike out at an outrageous amount 17 times in 78 plate appearances

These are all that’s a small sample size either way but it he is someone who I would like to see get that chance to play more against lefties because I do think you know we’re always looking for the left-handed hitters who Crush righties if they can just be decent

Against lefties if he can he if he can be a low 700s Ops bat against lefties and play every day there’s a a ton of room for Carri Carpenter to provide uh profit this season Chris I know you love Riley green I agree with you on kry Carpenter Colt Keith just got the

Extension hope tigers are tigers are a little interesting I I I did on the pitchon panel we did um grading every team’s offseason moves I think I gave them either a b or an A just because like forward momentum baby like this is a team that’s building and is actually

Adding players so I I um I like I like I like where the tigers are at right now yeah I am a fan as well I’m I’m just about ready to uh hop on the bandwagon before the tigers become good I’m I’m in go win 76 games this year it’ll be great

You know I actually want to look up their over under for the season I might hop on the over there with the Detroit Tigers let’s talk about three pitchers that ATC is higher on Zack effin at sp12 Shane Bieber at sp31 Nester Cortez at sp37 it feels like ATC values K toalk

Ratio for for pitchers quite a bit which obviously makes sense Zack effin excels at kok ratio he is one of the best control pitchers in the game his ADP is currently as the 25th starting pitcher off the board and he could wind up being a huge bargain in that same mock draft

We did Ariel I know that Zack effin was a pitcher you wound up drafting oh yeah um trying I’m trying to some sometimes when you look at a player and you say why is he you know such a good pitcher and un undervalued by the market you try

To poke hes what’s wrong with this right what do I get wrong but I’m looking nothing wrong here that walk rate last year 3% that’s that’s like George Kirby territory striking out players he had 186 strikeouts and 178 Innings um the XC seems Seems to confirm that his ER is

Legit all luck metric strand rate babip luck neutral um nothing now we worry about his health sure he hasn’t been the healthiest in the past maybe that’s the reason for the uh for the the bargain you’re getting but he did have 178 Innings last year and the Rays really do

Need to get Innings out of their pitchers so I I very much like Zack effin he stands out as a guy that you’re not paying the top five player price but he’s a solid Ace that you can get at a very low a price Ariel talk to me a

Little bit about Shane Bieber because it feels like if there could be a blind spot in projections perhaps injuries or rapid skill degradation is something that projections could struggle with obviously they look at a threeyear sample that’s kind of like the base um and Shane Bieber has had some really

Good seasons over the past three years but things kind of feel like they’re rapidly tumbling down that strikeout rate swinging strike rate took huge dips last year he had that dreaded forearm strain as well so ATC still has Bieber at sp31 what do you think about him and

Maybe the way that projections kind of react to injuries and and Rapid skill degre degreg yeah I I agree this is a blind spot of projections I very often see Le more so of the playing time of the Innings uh than of the skills but it

Could be a little bit of both that just over project the Innings and I would bet the under on all these injury like Joe Musgrove I’d bet the under on whatever uh whatever Innings uh is projected here but Bieber at 170 Innings I I I don’t

Think so and whether I think so or not I’m not drafting him assuming that kind of innings projection in terms of the skills projections say that he’s going to be s idly similar to what he has before I don’t know that for sure maybe I’ll believe that more than the Innings

But in any case it’s very hard for me to draft a player with this much draft Capital he’s going the 12th round of 15 team drafts I I want to get I I’m still in that range where I want to get a short thing if I want to draft a pitcher

I want somebody who’s solid or I want a solid hitter to spend my draft capital on Bieber with that much uncertainty even if the projection show a small bargain not worth it to me so I’m I’m negative on Bieber Chris for those who have listened to the podcast podcast the

Past couple years they know that you have let’s call it an interesting relationship with Nester Cortez right the year that he broke out it was kind of hard to trust it but uh you know if we look at 21 and 22 he obviously was really good those years couldn’t stay

Healthy last year what’s interesting about the Cortez projection he grades out at SP 37 in only 129 Innings pitched so what that tells you is ATC expects Nester Cortez to be really good when he’s on the field although it might only be for like 130 Innings yeah I I I’ve come full circle

On Nester Cortez are I don’t no I don’t really think that’s the right I’ve come a half circle right that would be because like I was very skeptical of him based on the small sample size um in 2021 and then you know early in 2022 but

I I bought in more or less once you know we reached the midseason point in 2022 and I think the skill set’s really solid it’s a gigantic question with the health because when you’re talking about shoulder injuries especially that that’s really worrisome but given the price I I

Think it’s well worth taking that risk and I’ll just thank uh Ariel for giving me more ammunition for my anti- George Kirby uh position and like by anti- George Kirby I mean I’m like five or six spots lower than on the consensus than him but like yeah I’m going to write my my

Annual uh name brand versus bargain price article and Zack effin’s going to be the bargain brand George Kirby yeah actually when I was looking into Zack effin it felt a lot like George Kirby too it’s George Kirby except the strikeouts are already there yeah yeah that’s right it’s yeah it’s you might be

On to something there Chris uh Nester Cortez the price tag by the way the ADP over at nfbc 284 so yeah has basically been written off no risk he was uh limited to just 63 and a third Innings last year due to a strained rotator cuff

So that is pretty scary stuff but um it sounds like he’s healthy we’ll see where Nessa Cortez is at spring training and heading into the season we’re gonna go uh a little bit longer than usual 5 10 minutes longer I do want to talk about players that ATC is a little bit lower

On as well and we’ll start with Jose Ramirez who grades out as the 20th overall player and the third third baseman behind Austin Riley and Rafael Des that might not sound like a big thing but in the early rounds um you know we’re splitting hairs to try and

Figure out who to draft right so Jose Ramirez is someone you have to decide all right do I spend my first round pick at the turn on this player or not and you know based on this he kind of grades out as like the 20 or 25th best player

Whatever it might be um 20th the projection 279 26 homers 89 runs 95 RBI 24 steals that sounds about right for me maybe the counting stats are a little bit low um do you think they’re maybe dinging Jose Ramirez a little bit too unfairly Ariel for for down runs in RBI

Last year it kind of feels like the counting stats are a little bit out of his control maybe a little bit fluky year-over year I I have him ranked as the 17th best player right now so I I’m I’m actually right there with him and in terms of drafting especially in a roto

League when you have that big base of homers Steels you’ve got that great average he’s great in every single category my uh my statistic for dimension of player intra SD such a very High five-dimensional type player with upside also I think Jose Ramirez is a fantastic pick to start with um the fact

That he maybe’s technically under de uh um and um the other third baseman you mentioned uh if it is numerically it’s a dollar and it’s one of the things where if you just look at the ranking you and you don’t look at the dollar difference um the dollar difference are close we’re

Talking like a dollar difference between the three um it really is the same in terms of value so whether they ranked five spots lower doesn’t matter Jose Ramirez is a fantastic base to start a draft with and that’s what I noticed too like I was going to point out all right

ATC has Bobby wit ranked as the ninth batter right now but it’s $32.6 projected versus $36 for Aaron judge so it’s yeah a three four difference between the second best player and the ninth it’s really not a huge difference yeah it feels like that that second

Tier Ronald aunia in his own tier it feels like that next tier might be like 15 players deep yeah yes and that’s what Scott is argu too is that there’s really like I think he says 16 or 17 hitters just hitters that feel like they’re first round caliber they’re worthy of

Being first round picks and you know based on these projections that you know that kind of supports that theory as well all right ATC hates Young Players let’s try and figure out why I do kid I kid but it feels like top prospects in particular are very tough to project

Obviously we don’t have a track record to go based on outside of minor league data and I think projections are getting better at this um obviously it’s a little bit harder when we see outlier Seasons like what Corbin Carrol just did last year right it’s 25 plus homers 50

Plus steals just a crazy season and obviously the projections were nowhere close to that and it wasn’t just ATC it was no projection system was close to what Corbin Carol did last year gunar Henderson currently Pro Ed as the seventh best third baseman behind Nolan

Arado Ellie De La Cruz who is a hot name right now I saw Derek CI tweeting about how LED L Cruz is super low in the bat X projections as well uh LED L Cruz projected as the ninth best third baseman behind Alex bregman I think it’s

A good reminder Ariel that these are 50th percentile projections and obviously it’s really tough to figure out or try and project what a young first or seconde player is going to do yeah I mean Dela Cruz we we know what the upside could be he could be a speed

Demon he can steal 45 bases but I mean he had a 235 batting average I’m projecting him for 250 there is a scenario where he just performs with a 230 batting average and loses some playing time because let him figure it out there’s a possibility that he goes

In the minor so when when you have a projection and we talking about the median output the 50th percentile you got to take into account all of the Rangers and for young players there’s serious risk of just not getting there I mean for every prospect that really

Works out well there’s going to be two prospects that don’t and that’s why projections in general are down on prospects ju just to give you some some a little bit more context um the Marcel projections which are the simplest form of just take threee averages blah blah

Blah their stance on players who haven’t played at all minor league players are just project players at League average that’s like the best estimate you can do they’re just average players hard to project super stardom yes we get the Corbin carols we get the yunas who just

Break out and that sure we’re talking about a player here and there but in general there’s always risk with the players and so ell Dela Cruz where he’s going in drafts I I think not I think there are much safer Investments yeah there are a couple things I want to say

One last year I kind of cheated on my bold predictions which we always do on the show in the article I looked back on it and one of my bold predictions was one of Jordan Walker or Anthony vulpi will be sent back to the miners that’s that is a bold prediction

Because everybody was those guys were being drafted in the top 100 over the last week of the season it’s not a bold prediction because that’s what happens like the the the jump to the majors is incredibly difficult the other thing I’ll point out is like Fernando tatis I remember him being an incredibly

Incredibly controversial player when he made his major league debut and he was a a huge victory lap for the screw the pro projections draft the young guys at their ceiling crowd and I will just let’s go back to 2019 I’m looking at baseball prospectuses top 100 Prospects

Top 101 not going to go through all 101 we only do top 90 no sorry uh top 10 here’s what they look like try to remember the hype around these guys and then what they actually did as rookies Vladimir Guerrero Jr fine but Average Joe Adell nope Fernando tatis awesome awesome ELO

Jimenez fine solid Victor roblas he was a top five Prospect in baseball Kon Hera huge win for the draft the the high upside rookies for his rookie season and never again yeah Forest Whitley I think was out of baseball like two years after this yeah Royce Lewis hey five years

Later it’s finally working out Nick zel Taylor tremell like even like Kyle Tucker who’s a relative success story wasn’t like setting the world on fire right away it took like that’s what one or two hits out of the top 10 hitters like that’s that’s pretty that’s pretty normal and

Soit rate right we talk about it’s very important to get hit rate right so when we talk about Jackson Chio and Wyatt Langford and and even Evan Carter who at least you know like Corbin Carroll had has proved it at some point in the major leagues like the most likely outcome for these

Guys is they’re not going to be very useful for Fantasy at least right away and you might have to sit with them like Jordan Walker last year who ended up being decent once you know he got back from the miners but the the bus rates

Are are going to be very very high and you have to determine whether the UPS side you know looking for that huge win is going to be worth it and the problem with ell De La Cruz is he’s not being drafted at his cealing because the skill set is

Incredible but he’s not being drafted at his median outcome either he’s being drafted at like an 85th percentile outcome probably yeah that’s exactly right the ADP for Ellie De La Cruz over at the nfbc 22.6 so in a 12 team League he is a second round pick if we’re factoring in

His downside being he could potentially wind up in the miners he probably should be somewhere around like the 50s the 60s I think that you know factors in the downside a little bit more and obviously still kind of you’re thinking about that upside I understand why people want these players

They’re fun fantasy is supposed to be fun I understand we want to root for Ellie De La Cruz we want a root for jackon trio and Wyatt Langford I understand why but if you think about it logically and objectively and your goal is to win in fantasy these players don’t

Hit as often as we like to think they do uh and I did want to bring up Trio who is projected as the 63rd outfielder and Langford who’s projected as the 75th outfielder according to ATC the projections actually aren’t bad if you look at Trio 16 homers 17 steals in 116

Games Langford 16 home runs 11 steals in 99 games now if you want to do some quick quick math yourself and just kind of project that over like 140 150 games if you think those guys could play that much and those could turn out to be really good players so keep those things

In mind um but you know uh just looking at their entire projections doesn’t gray out that well compared to uh other players in the Outfield ham Kim I wanted to mention he is uh projected outside the top 15 at each of his positions second base third base and shortstop the

ATC projection for Hassan Kim 248 15 homers 73 runs and 27 steals doesn’t sound like a bad projection it feels pretty fair honestly uh Chris I know Kim was in your bust 1.0 which came out earlier this week so my guess is you are probably closer to what the ATC

Projection has to say about Kim yeah I might be way higher um yeah I get it um he was really good last season but there are real red flags in the profile like he took this big step forward as a power hitter 17 home runs last season the

Quality of content data for him is very very poor even for a guy who does tend to pull the ball when he hits it in the air I have a hard time seeing him replicate that a lot of it comes down to he stole 12 bases on 14 attempts the

Previous year he stole 38 on 47 attempts last season I don’t know what to make of that like he’s fast but he’s not an elite Sprint speed guy 79th percentile that is pretty good though 79 it’s good but we’re not talking about Trey Turner you know we’re talking about a good base

Runner but not an elite one and not one who had shown that ability and this might be a scenario like uh Ariel was saying with the with the Juiced ball where some of those fringer guys benefited a little more from the rule changes I don’t you know I don’t know if

The the evidence necessarily supports that but it’s just to say that if they get a little gun shy you know then it can start to be a a little iffy like if he steals 25 bases how valuable is that if it comes with 12 homers and what will likely be pretty

Poor counting stats well based on the projection which is pretty close to that it’s outside the top 15 yeah second base third base and short stop yeah this is a valuation problem I think that people see the 38 steals from last year and okay projections are 27 for ATC I mean

What are you going to project 40 steals for Hassan Kim you know as compared to what first of all stolen bases are not as Val Val as they were two years ago that’s that’s another thing um and that goes into the projection of the valuation so he yes he still going to

Have that 1515 combo yes all these things are right like I don’t see anything wrong with the projection it’s just not as valuable as compared to other quantities as you think all right let’s wrap up with three pitchers at ATC is loron Zack Gallen at sp15 Blake Snell

At sp25 who remains a free agent and Yuri Perez at SP 33 Ariel are there any of these three names that you are particularly worried about or lower on yourself uh you know considering the ATC projections gallon Snell and Yuri Perez yeah I think it’s Blake Snell I mean the

Walks are now creeping up the Strand rate was 87% last year he was extremely lucky uh he’s been volatile in terms of what he’s done yes last year he had 180 Innings but he really hadn’t had that many innings uh since 2018 so I think he’s still a good pitcher but to go

Anywhere near AEM this year I think is really foolish uh so I won’t be drafting Blake Snell he is the founder of ATC projections you can listen to him on the beat the shift podcast again he contributes to Fang graphs Roto baller Roto baller and CBS now it sounds like

It’s about to be RotoWire as well Ariel thanks so much for hopping on today man we appreciate it oh so much fun thanks so much for having me yeah and uh good luck in tows this year I’m no longer in the league so I could for you to win

Thank you very much maybe I can win this year now that you’re out ah we’ll see what happens we’re gonna wrap there for Chris and Ariel I am Frank thanks is always for tuning in to Fantasy Baseball today please make sure to follow and leave a festar rating on Apple or

Spotify and we’ll be back again tomorrow byebye