The First 2027 Draft Recap w/ KC Bubba! (9/6 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

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1:01T-Mobile, best mobile network in the US. According to Uclas speed tests, based on analysis by Uclas of speed test intelligence data first half, 2026. Uclas trademarks used under license and reprinted with permission. Baseball season is in full swing and there's no better place to be than calcium. America's number one prediction market platform. Atlanta is currently trading at 7% to win it all, meaning a $100 trade pays out over $1,200 with a win. On CalShi, you're trading against other people in a live market, no house, no odds makers. And as the odds move, you can buy in or out anytime throughout the post season. Download the CalShi app and use code fan to get up to $500 in bonus credits when you trade $25. K-A-L, S-H-I, CalShi, trade on anything. 18 plus only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply, event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. CalShi products are not available in all jurisdictions, prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned.

2:01For more information, see CalShi.com slash regulatory. Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Oh, my God, and for the championship, we're seeing T-Club Film. This is Wanda Black, walk away. Got a fantasy question, email fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your lead. What fantasy? Because reality. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. It's a tourally for 2027 draft content. It's never too early. Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball Today on Sunday, September 6th. I am Frank Stample, joined by Chris Towers and a very special guest we are here to break down. The first official draft of 2027 and hope everyone's enjoying the Labor Day weekend. Obviously, we will not be live today, later tonight breaking down the weekend. We will be live again tomorrow on Monday night with a very, very long Labor Day weekend recap. Here to help us break down that draft, someone who participated in the first 15 of 50 rounds

3:04of that draft is KC Bubba. What's going on, Bubba? How's everything going? Well, everything's gone great. Thanks for having me on the show to talk about this. I think it's, we talked about it off there. It's a great exercise to get our brains going into something maybe positive if 2026 isn't going so well for everybody, but it's an exercise is the best way I can put it. Yes, I look doing a draft in the middle of August for the following season as a near impossible task, but it gets the wheels turning a little bit. It starts to get you thinking about where players are going to go. What the first couple rounds are going to look like. Obviously, everything after that I think is kind of a crapshoot and then 80 people kind of take its place into the off season and start to take shape and all that stuff. Obviously, if you listen or follow fantasy baseball content, you probably have a pretty good idea of who Bubba is, but you can find his work at baseball HQ and fantasy pros. You can listen to him on the bench with Bubba podcast as well as Bubba in the bloom, where he co-hosts with the great Ryan Bloomfield. You can follow him on xatbdentric and people don't know this,

4:05but Bubba and I actually watched game five of the 2023 World Series together. We were at the game in Arizona. We saw the game clincher, the Rangers winning the World Series when we were out at first pitch Arizona, which was amazing. It was really cool. It was the first time I've met you in person. We've done shows together. And it was one of those like, hey, we got these two tickets. Frank wants one. Do you want one? Do you guys mind sitting together? No, we can watch baseball. It's fine. That's easy. We had a great time. It is, you know, that was only three years ago. And it is wild to remember that the Rangers and Diamondbacks played in the World Series three years ago. I had to Google a whole lifetime ago. I had to Google beforehand. What year did the Rangers win the World Series? It feels like a lifetime ago. I couldn't even remember what year it was, but yes, the Rangers did win the World Series against a deback. So that was really awesome. Chris, have you ever been to a World Series game? That's the only one I've ever been to. I went to, Frank, you may remember this game. Now four of the 2003 World Series.

5:05Don't do that. Don't Alex Gonzalez hit a walkoff home run off of Jeff, without Jeff Weaver, right? Jeff would have been way too early for a Jair. Do we right now? Yeah, that was an incredible game. It was, I believe, the highest attended World Series game of all time. Miguel Cabrera had a home run off Roger Clemens. And what we thought was Roger Clemens final game turned out, I think he pitched another five or six seasons after that. And yeah, no, I have been to a Marlins World Series game. All right, well, hopefully later this year, we're going to a Yankees versus whichever team in the NFL World Series. That would be great. It's gonna happen again. Yeah, yeah, let's, Marlins are gonna win the World Series in Yankee Stadium again. No, no, no, no. I mean, I would very much welcome the Marlins making the World Series against the Yankees. That would, that would work out pretty well for the Yankees. I think that would work out pretty well. All of this is a promo for those who haven't been. You've probably heard about it. Even if you've been there before, first pitch Arizona is coming very soon. It is the first, second, second weekend of November,

6:06November 5th through eighth at the Sheraton Mesa Rigglyville. And it's a great event every year. If you love baseball, if you love fantasy baseball, we go out, we watch Arizona Folly games. There's live panels, there's live podcasts. We play a whiff of ball game. There's just a lot of, we do way too early drafts. There's a bunch of, bunch of people who are crazy about fantasy there, hanging out, talking, and drinking, and having a great time. So that is my promo. If you haven't been, just go to baseballHQ.com and you could search up first pitch Arizona and that'll pop up, give you all the details there. So if you haven't been there before, please come out. It is a lot of fun. So the intro to this draft, this is the annual Meepall draft hosted by Rob D. Pietro at Deadpool Hitter on X. He is a great high stakes player. And every year, this is the first draft for the following season. A very fun thought exercise gets the wheels turning for 2027. 15 team roto draft and hold. So it is a 50 round draft. There is no in season waiver wire or trades. It's just you set your line up.

7:06Obviously pitchers on Mondays and then you could do hitters on Mondays and Fridays. So the normal NFBC lineup. So Bob, you were in this. It was you and 14 other great players, high stakes players, content creators. And you drafted the first 15 rounds of this draft. And I believe the draft was done a little bit over two weeks ago, August 19th. So things have changed even since then. But how does somebody even prep for a draft in August for the next season? It changes every year kind of the way we pencil it together. Everyone has their own way. Like Phil Dueso and Steve Weimer in this and they have their own like quasi projections for next year already put together in a computer which way passed my pay grade. I more of a I watch things. I kind of use my patent paper and figure things out. This year they had those mid season gladiators on NFBC. So I kind of I use that ADP. I had the player rateer for like the second half and the full season. I kind of had a conglomeration of things. But I had like 20 pieces of paper on my desk.

8:07I am not the gifted build a chart person out there. But yeah, everyone has their own way to do it. There's no perfect formula for this because we are trying to predict. We already played a game. We try to predict the future. Now we're trying to predict the future with so many uncertainties coming in front of us. So yeah, it's pretty good. I mean, it's hard enough when we're doing drafts in October and November because you're in the draft room but you don't have like update. Like if we do a draft on CBS, we don't have updated rankings. We just have last year's rankings built in. And so there's always guys that you just forget. Like it's always tough to do that. Let alone when they're still at the point you guys are drafting about 20% of the season left. You know, it's not nothing. I don't know how many players are gonna drastically change their outlook between, you know, August 15th and the end of the season, but it's not gonna change nothing. So yeah, it's gonna be tough no matter what. Yeah, it's basically, there's no ADP Ryan Roof. He creates the sticker board that does it for us.

9:08Like it's all by hand. We're all winging it essentially to your point of we don't like have anything to go off of in theory from like on a website or some browser to use. And it does make it quite challenging to do. But there always will be some that's fall through the cracks. So there's like strategies of when you take your KDS, some guys prefer the back is when we restart, they'll get the first pick. And they'll like, oh, look at all these guys that we missed. And once the like terror school will a couple of years goes with the first pick in the restart. Like that turned out to be pretty sweet. This year might be a little different. Last year, a good buddy, Dom Rello picked Randy Rodriguez. We found out he was the only time he was ever picked in an NPC draft period because like a week later, he had to get Tommy John surgery. So little things do happen for the most part to your point, Chris. It's it's not nothing, but there's still uncertainty to be hit. Yeah, I mean, building off that uncertainty, right? Do you just kind of blanket downgrade pending free agents just because a, we don't know where they're going to land? I think it's even harder with relievers. And you actually drafted David Pettnar,

10:10which is an interesting talking point. We don't know like the Dodgers might just sign them to be their seventh inning reliever for the next year. But we also don't even know if there's going to be a next year. So there's just a lot of uncertainty right now. Yeah, and the bedner is the example I was going to go off. If I kept watching, I have him this year. He's been huge for me. He's been amazing. And I just kept watching him fall and fall on the skills are still good. But the uncertainty of where he's playing is the question. Now the Yankees, they should resign him. They might not, who knows? A team, you would imagine he goes to a team where he can pitch, but to your point, the Dodgers do Dodger things. There's a few teams that can do that. So yes, that's why he fell and eventually gets to a point where you're like, the million dollar man says everyone's got a price. This was the price for David Bedner. How much does, like, one of the things we've talked a lot about is that just collapse of the entire first two rounds from the 2026 season. And it was something that was in the back of my mind the last couple of years when you go through the first round and especially, you know, the first two rounds. How many of these guys were like in their 30s?

11:11And we just, we're, we kind of had like Jose Ramirez and Judge are in the point of their careers where the decline phase might be here now. And how much does that impact how you're viewing the 2027 field right now? Because Aaron Judges still out. Jose Ramirez, I think just by the time you guys were drafting, he hadn't hit a home run since like June. Now that we're talking, you know, at the beginning of September, Shoeo Tani is going through it. I think he hasn't homered in 12 games. The game on Wednesday night, I think that was like the worst he's ever looked as a big leaker. How does that impact how you're viewing the 2027 field? It does affect a lot of things. It's a combination of there's potential upside if you could take a chance on certain players. And then there's also a lot of falling. Like we'll talk about when you look at this board, it's a whole different landscape in the early rounds. Cause I was not alone in these thoughts, but you mentioned J. Ramirez. I love those here.

12:12I always have. He is the model of consistency, but as you said, father time eventually will win. That's just reality. And J. Ram fell to pick 14 to my coach, Ryan Bloomfield. And we were all in our stream going, that could be a great pick. Or it's one of those like, man, if he's falling, it is what it is, but at the same time, it could be a great pick. As you'll tell with my picks, I went a little more youthful early on to kind of go that direction to kind of play the upside card with potentially a floor where other guys fell off. And if you look at the entire first round to your point, Chris, it's a lot of use. Like I want to nothing to do a tawny. I get the love, but that's not like a tawny and judge. It's a ton of young players going through that first part of the round. All right, so let's get into the actual draft. And for those watching on YouTube, you'll see here we have the draft board up. It might be a little bit hard to see all the picks. You might have to zoom in a little bit. We'll try to talk through as many of the picks as possible for those listening on the audio side of things. But I do recommend if you want to see the draft board, you can pull us up on YouTube as well. And also I realize truly how hard it is for people to draft

13:13in mid-August for the following season. So for anyone who's listening who might have been part of this draft, I don't want to sound overly critical. It's just we're all trying to figure this out together. So I just want to throw that out there. I have a precursor. I haven't even started the process of ranking for next year. So who the heck am I to say that any pick was right or wrong? Yeah, I mean, interestingly enough, Chris, we had a conversation the other day. And you're like, you know, Jordan Walker, he might go around pick 50 next year. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. He went bullet, bullet just took him in the first round. Yeah. Yeah, no, I was kind of like, can we delete that whole part of the pile? Kind of sound like an idiot. It was so funny though, because Ben did, he gets easy as he goes. So he listens to you guys first thing every morning. He texts me, goes, hey, they were talking about you on the show today. And I'm like, and literally Frank texts me like a couple hours later. Hey, you want to come on the show? Let's talk about the default draft. I'm like, where, why not? That's for you. But that's one of the like, he's mostly running through the finish line. I mean, April's going to go down as Jordan Walker's best month of the season. But he hasn't really fallen off that much.

14:15You know, he maybe doesn't look quite as elite as he did early on. But he's going to end up with what, 35, 25. So that's an awesome season. Yeah. And that's kind of where my brain went. I guess if we want to go there for a second is, I'm looking at a guy that we have a 2020 floor. Obviously you want more than that with your first round pick. But the also the potential to go 30 to 40 home runs. But we haven't seen it all yet. Obviously it's a first year breakout out of nowhere. But it's a guy that's 24 years old. So I'm always like last year, I had the 10th pick. I took junior Caminero and everyone thought that was the craziest pick in the world. Now is he going to be as Walker going to be as good as Caminero? Probably not. Like let's just be real there. But could Walker be that good? It could be. So to me, like Walker's could resemble like what we want for Dan of DuckT's to be in my brain at least. Yeah. Now there are parallels there too, because again, like, do you want to be the person to use a first round pick on a player who's only done it one year? Yet you just did it last year, which in your Caminero? And it worked out swimmingly. And Jordan Walker, you know, the start to his career was

15:20obviously slow, but he was a huge prospect as well. Like it took him a couple of years to figure it out. But you know him and Caminero were prospects like on the same level when they were coming up. And obviously it happened a lot sooner for Caminero, but it looks like it's happening now for Jordan Walker as well. So let's walk through the first round here and just start things with a very first pick. Pete Crow Armstrong, followed by Show Hill, Tony, Bobby Wood Jr. and Aaron Judge. But Baba, it's like this was done a couple of weeks ago. Obviously PCA has just gone off since then. But when it's all said and done this year, he might wind up going 40, 40 and hitting close to 300 and playing like platinum glove defense. It might shock some people to see him go first overall here. But when you actually think about it from a roto perspective, it's really not crazy. It's not crazy at all. And you said the word shocked. And that's one of the things we've talked about a lot. A lot of this board is sticker shock. That's what it is because we haven't seen these names here. And when you first see PCA at 1-1, you're like, whoa. Like we got a ton of you. We got all these names we're used to in that profile.

16:20But to your point, you mentioned what he did. We mentioned the age. We mentioned the defensive skills that will keep them on the field even if he's struggling to hopefully work through whatever struggles he finds. I think it's a great argument. I don't see how people can absolutely say no he shouldn't be. I can see if people want to put someone else there, totally fine. But what PCA is doing, the year of CUNY was the quote unquote unanimous 1-1 was a 40-40 profile. PCA is in that ballpark right now with what he's doing. I know it's only been one year to your comment earlier. And I totally agree with that. But he is showcasing that he has improved. He's built off of the struggles. And he could be something special. And the skill set has gotten so much better for PCA that I mentioned this stat the other day on the podcast. But I believe before May of 2026, I think he had never had more than eight walks in a month in his major league career. The past four months, he's gone 13, 17, 16, and 16. He has transformed himself basically overnight

17:24into not just a pretty good played discipline guy. But in a lead one, I had no idea this was coming. I admit I thought this could be a struggle. Season for PCA Armstrong. And instead, it's a reminder that young players can just get better. And skill sets are not static. And while I think you should probably bet on PCA Armstrong taking a step back in 2027 or relative to 2026, just anytime someone goes 4040, I don't know if anybody's ever gone 4040 back to back. The skill set is incredibly strong. He's hitting lefties really well. I don't really think there's all that much to be skeptical about with PCA Armstrong. And when you're just lining everyone up right now, I do kind of think he has to go 1-1 just because your alternatives are 33-year-old Shohei O'Connie, I believe, who we've always

18:26talked about the fact that he's a pitcher is going to increase the injury risk at least somewhat. And right now, he looks like he's struggling. Bobby Witt, incredible player, but we're seeing now that the ceiling outcome hasn't been there the last couple of seasons. I think Aaron Judge, you tell me he's going to play 150 games. I probably take him 1-1, but he's going to be 35, I think. And has now missed significant time. I do kind of think PCA is just the default 1-1. Maybe it's not maybe getting the 1-1 isn't the huge edge that you normally hope it would be because there is some risk for PCA, but I think it's the right pick there. Yeah, I think that last point in particular, and credit to PCA for all the improvements that he's made this season, but it doesn't feel like there's another slam dunk first overall pick for all the reasons that you threw out there. Aaron Judge, to me, complete wild card. At the time of recording this, he still isn't back with the Yankees yet.

19:29This rib injury, is he going to make it through the postseason healthy? Are we going to find out something in the offseason that he actually needs a surgery and is going to miss time next year? We just don't know. And a guy that big too, it's fair to question how his body is going to age and things like that. So I don't think that there is a clear, just like slam dunk 1-1 and I think that's why PCA is definitely in that conversation. Read off the rest of the first round again. The top five picks PCA, Otani, Whit, Judge, Junior, Caminaro. Caminaro, ah, ah, Caminaro. Six through 10, we had James Wood, Juan Soto, Fernando Tati's junior, Yordon Alvarez, and Jordan Walker, and then Ellie De La Cruz, Jacob Mizierowski, CJ Abrams, Jose Ramirez, and Jackson Churio. So we spoke about Jordan Walker and Bubba's pick of that. I think like the other one that really stands out to me, Yordon deserves to be back in the first round now. Obviously Tati's having a monster second half. Ellie De La Cruz dealing with a quad injury now. We didn't know that at the time,

20:30but I still think he'll be in that first round mix. The Miz has the first pitch off the board. Bubba, CJ Abrams kind of stands out to me too, because this is another one where like, we've known for years that he's had, he has the talent, the power, the speed, the contactability. He was a highly rated prospect as well. He's never been able to do it over a full season. Now he did, but you have to pay the price of a first round pick to bet on CJ Abrams doing it again. What do you think about him going here towards the end of the first round? I like it a lot if you want to not, I grabbed that short stop outside of Ellie, you know, Whit went earlier. The more you look at this board, short stop still good, but it's not as dominating as it's been in years past. If that makes sense as you look through it, still a good position, but Abrams is that guy. It's kind of like the walker argument, I'll make arguments for others. It's the you thing. He's still only 25 years old. Feels like we've been talking about CJ Abrams for a long time since he came over on that one, so it'll trade from the podjays. And the power's just like slowly come together, but the speed's always been there. So it has like a weird Bryce Turing feel to it.

21:33Like he might not ever get to like the leap bat on average of Turing, but maybe as he's developed and changed his swing, the power has followed, the speed will still be there. It did help that the Nats had one of the best offenses in baseball for like two thirds of the season. That has dried up a bit towards the end here, but you're looking at a player, he's gonna be 26 next year. He's got some Maggi and injuries right now day in the season. Hopefully that is not a lingering thing into next year, but that's the what ifs we do with the draft this early because we are crazy like that. But I think the skills are very, very good. And it is a, an elite like 30, 30 profile, I think with CJ Abrams. All right, let's take our first break when you return. We will do a quick recap of the first round and then we'll move, we'll jump around to other picks as well. We'll recap, I'll just seem a little bit later on as well. But let's take that break. We'll be back right after this. Hey, before we jump back into the show, let's take a quick break, but not just any break. This is a refreshing break with Snapple. We all know about Snapple's iconic real facts. So let's take a minute to go over some of my faves. Snapple Real Facts 1417.

22:34Before 1859, baseball umpires sat behind home plate in rocking chairs. Snapple Real Facts 1483. More than 100 baseballs are used during a typical professional baseball game. Snapple Real Facts 253. The first TV remote control introduced in 1950 was called lazy bones. Snapple Real Facts 2105. Professional athletes used to perform in Vaudeville in the off season. So grab a Snapple, take a second, and enjoy the moment. Because let's be honest, this might be the most refreshing part of your day. Snapple, make your break more interesting. All right, now let's get back to the show. Welcome back, fantasy baseball. Today we are here recapping the first draft for 2027 with Casey Bubba. And we write off the first round. Chris, is there anything that you that stands out in the first round as severely out of place or anything that you would like to make mention of before we kind of jump into, you know, later rounds here and jump around to different picks. I mean, I do kind of have like a maybe dumb question

23:35about Jacob Mizierowski. And this is not really serious, but like, our team's just gonna start like watering the front of the mound right before he pitches every time. This is two starts in a row. I don't know if you guys talked about this last night, but this is two starts in a row where he's talked about how much trouble he's had on the visiting mound. It was in city field two starts to go, then wriggly field last night. He really struggled when we were recording this Wednesday night. That's kind of a joke, but it's also, you know, I do think first round picture is always, you know, it's gonna cause people some agita, I think. And that's the one that stands out. And then obviously, like I was a huge Jordan Walker, sorry, Yard on Averaz, booster this year because he was, you know, you can get him like 40th in some drafts. Now he's ninth. This is something I always struggle with with injury risk guys.

24:35I think we saw it with Byron Bucks in this year where he finally has the one healthy season and to a certain extent, people are like, great, injury risk is gone. And it's like, well, no, the injury risk is still there. So I'm gonna struggle with Yard on Averaz this season. I think the price is fine, ninth overall. It looked, he might win the triple crown. He's an incredible hitter. I struggle with the price jumping that much with a guy like that. So those are the two that stand out to me. And then how's Aaron Miras? I mean, the skill set hasn't really changed when you look at the underlying stuff. Strike out rate, okay, it's the highest. It's been since 2021. It's still 13%. Right? Like that's still an incredible mark. His expected Woba 342 identical to 2025. Pulled air rate identical to 2025. All the stuff that we typically care about with Josea Ramirez looks the same as last year, except he's hitting 240 and he only has 11 homers.

25:37So the actual production that clearly has not been there. The skill set doesn't look that different. And I do think that's one, especially if he closes the season strong, I could see Josea Ramirez creeping back towards the top half of the first round. If he closes season strong. And he has a pretty good excuse, right? Like having the hammy bone injury kind of snapping him of power mid season, especially. It's really hard to come back from and just hit the ground running and go back to being the Josea Ramirez that we know and love. One point in his favor is that the third base position is God awful. So if you want to push him up because of that in the first round, I have absolutely no problem doing that as well. Let's jump around to different picks here. And the very first pick of round two, pick 16. Connor Griffin, which will surprise some people. But man, I listened to different content around this specific draft right after it happened. And it sounded like everybody in the second round wanted the chance to draft Connor Griffin and didn't get that chance. So Bubba, it might surprise some people. But this was the top prospect and baseball

26:40entering the season. Obviously he dealt with the injury, but he flashed massive speed. We think the power is going to come. Obviously, good batting average profile as well. How high is too high for Connor Griffin? It's one of those that if he, I know, what spring training we have, who knows? But if he finishes September strong, as we're recording this, he could be back on Friday. So I know we're kind of messing with dates here, but he's real close to make it something that happened in September. To me, everybody wanted him to your point. There was a resounding, like we were all wondering when he would go. And I was very ready to take him with the six pick at round two. But with Griffin to me, I compare him to, I guess you could say, a poor man's Ellie, just because he's got so much speed. And just as matters, does the power follow? Because if the power follows with his speed, there isn't a big difference to me. I've also quasi anti-Eliate times. They're very similar at the shortstop position to me. And I think Connor Griffin, we haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg.

27:40So there's a pure upside play, but one of those that he's going to go early and draft next year, let's have an crazy happens. Yeah. Chris, it does remind me a little bit of Bobby with Junior when he first came up, right? And he was just like boom thrust right into the first round right away. And in fact, we actually had more of a sample from Bobby with Junior, his rookie year versus Connor Griffin, but I guess people are just dreaming on the upside. And I can't really blame them with Connor Griffin. And you know, when you look at the season that Bobby wrote, it was a 254 average 722 OPS. He only stole 30 bases. Griffin had 20 steals in 59 games. He had a 736 OPS. He hit 276. Obviously right now as we're talking, he only played 59 games. Most he'll get to if he returns on Friday as what? 80? Might get to 80? Yeah, I think that might have enough time. We're going to get a half a season where you might only get single digit home runs

28:41in a half season, but you might get 25 steals and it doesn't take much to project that out and say this is a guy who debuted when he was 19, right? Right after he turned 20, he will be 20 on opening day next season, I believe. Yeah, we had this conversation, I think around the All Star break when there maybe it was one connoisseur got hurt. And Scott was pretty skeptical that Connagriffin was going to be a top 50 pick. And I said, regardless of where you think he should go, there is no question Connagriffin's going to be an early round pick. And it's just a question of what your specific risk profile is and how much you're willing to take that on. But I don't think there's any draft next season barring something catastrophic happening like the season not happening where Connagriffin second round pick at least. Yeah, I think there's no way he falls

29:43out outside of the second round in any draft next year. So maybe point to the exam, that's a different, but we're talking about Roto right now, and I think he'll clearly be that. So Bobby with junior, his work he sees in 20 homers, 30 steals, you mentioned the batting average, his WRC plus 98 and Connagriffin at this point, his WRC plus is 101. So just to put that in perspective, Bobby with junior the following year in 2023, the ADP was 10.56. So he was very firmly in the first round. And I don't think it would shock me if Connagriffin even moves closer to that number, that Bobby with junior had back in 2023. Again, we'll jump around to different picks here, but South Stewart might shock some people. The 21st overall pick in this draft, I absolutely love it. Yeah. Baba, he went to you, South Stewart. So what went through your mind making this pick, South Stewart overestablished players like Akail Schwarber, obviously a downseason for Connor Henderson, Ronald Coonia as well. So why South Stewart over some of those names?

30:45It comes back to the, you mentioned it with Jerem, how bad third base is. Everyone sees South Stewart as the first baseman and my brain goes, he's straight to a cornering field. He's easy to be flexible with this, but I'm probably playing with third base. When we're talking South Stewart, the other thing was South Stewart, and this will be an echoing statement of mine. 22 years old, super young, and he's still got 31 home runs to go at 12 steals, 266. Oh, and that 105 RBI has no one's talked about that at all this year. But at Jespe K, just got his second rookie of the month award. It's like the first time in Red's history. The kid is extremely good as the way I would say it. And I don't know if we've even, and Annie almost got second base eligibility to top this off just to make things even more entertaining. So I think it's another bat if Walker continues to, he's all big ifs, I get it. If Walker keeps his train, Stewart keeps his train, I like to get as many close to five category guys as I can. So I got 230 plus home run guys, at least 215 plus steel guys, averages that won't kill you. They both have over 100 RBI's this year.

31:46Oh, and Sal gets to play off his games in Great American Small Park. So that's a plus as well. Yeah, as we're talking, he's played 158 games in his career. He has a 265 batting average, 36 home runs, 91 runs, 113 RBI, 12 stolen bases. Sounds like a second round picked me. Yeah, that is pretty awesome. And we've heard a lot. I've referenced this before the season. He's very close with Manny Machado, and Manny Machado is his mentor. He looks up to him. And I said before the year, I think like long term, Sal Stewart can turn into a Manny Machado Esquire. I didn't think it was gonna happen in his first full season, but here we are. He very much so looks like a Manny Machado Esquire. Continue on, Cam Schliitler, when I picked 24 as the SP4 off the board here behind only Jacob Mizurowski, Tarek Schuble, Christopher Sanchez, and ahead of Yamamoto, Hazus Lazardo, Chris Sale. Chris, what do you think about that price tag for Cam Schliitler? Pick 24 as the SP4 off the board. I don't really see anything wrong with it. The Yankees, the only risk I guess would be he's young

32:50and he might get hurt, but we said that coming into the season, it hasn't happened. The Yankees do not treat their starting pitchers like the Dodgers too. Like the Yankees ride their starting pitchers, they are gonna let you go deep into games. He's gonna end up making like 33 starts, probably get to 190, 195 innings maybe. So workload is not gonna be a concern. Yeah, there's some injury risk, but the skill set looks legit. Okay, he won't repeat a 204 ERA. His peripherals are all sub three, which is really rare. It's really hard to have a Sierra, a FIP, X-FIP, X-E-R-E, whichever one you prefer, all be under three. So the skill set is extremely legitimate for Cam Schliitler. The workload is there, he's on a good team. I don't really see any argument against it. You look at some of the other pitchers in that range. Yamamoto's awesome. He's gonna make like 28 or 29 starts. The Dodgers are gonna be a six-man rotation.

33:53Look, Luzardo's awesome, but that's a little scary as a top five starting pitcher. Chris Dale, same thing as Yamamoto. The innings are even worse. So yeah, I think Schliitler kind of has to be where he is. Yeah, and I've talked about this a lot in previous years. It's kind of a mental thing in fantasy for me to kind of get over a mental hurdle. And I'm gonna have to do it for both South Stewart and Cam Schliitler because I liked both of those guys a lot this year. But now that you have to pay a second round price tag to be in on them once again, it's like, can you get over that hurdle of, oh, I could have got those guys outside the top 100 in previous years. Now I have to use a second round pick to jump in. But the skillsets do look incredibly safe as safe as it could be for a pitcher for both of those guys, for Cam Schliitler and for South Stewart. The two picks later after Cam Schliitler, we saw Gunnar Henderson go off the board. And I think this is an interesting one because obviously a down season for Gunnar Henderson, that's two in a row. And honestly, dating back to the second half of 2024,

34:55I personally, I thought entering a draft like this, we might get more of a discount. And again, this is not gospel. There are gonna be a lot of different drafts in the off season and ADP will kind of tell us where Gunnar Henderson settles in. But were you surprised that there wasn't more of a discount here on Gunnar Henderson at pick 26? I thought he would fall more because there's a couple of short stops that go in the next round and McConaugle in the door. I would take over Gunnar Henderson. I've been kind of off Gunnar for a couple draft seasons now. As you mentioned, the fall continues with him. Maybe something to click. I get super young still. We know he does have the talent, but he's either playing hurt. He hasn't adjusted the way the league adjusted to him. There's a lot of factors you can dig in and look at all the underlying metrics on when it comes to Gunnar Henderson. But to be a second round pick to be the fourth, short stop off the board or fifth, I guess Gunnar Griffins there. Yeah, that doesn't do it for me with Henderson. I was kind of surprised. And again, Mike Megger is a Hall of Famer. Just got inducted in the NPC Hall of Famer's best year.

35:57He knows what he's doing. That's the thing is like you say, we're not critiquing picks. It's just what I would do personally and I personally am not a Gunnar Henderson guy. How many times in the four full seasons Gunnar Henderson has played? Do you guys think he has been a top 50 player according to Fandiraff's player error? Once? I'd send one. That's the one with that question. It's probably zero. One time, the 2024 season, he was a top 10 player, I believe. Other than that, the best he's finished is 50 second back in 20, sorry, 60 second back in 2023. That's rough. I'm not, I'm surprised that he's not lower. It is the way I would put it. I'm not saying, I don't know where I'm going to rank him. That's going to be one of the toughest players to rank, but it definitely feels early for a guy who hasn't really been that kind of player. I have pointed this out, but second half of 2024, it was like a 799 OPS. And then this year, the stolen base has not been there is really killing him.

36:59Yeah, it's weird all around for Gunnar Henderson. Just the Orioles in general, the way their hitters have progressed or not progressed. I guess, rather regressed over the past couple of seasons, but he's still in the prime age of his career. It's still a good ballpark for left handed hitters to hit in. And Camden, it's just very weird the way that things have played out here for Gunnar Henderson. So I do agree. I think it's a really tough one heading into 2027. The very next pick was Drake Baldwin, who went and picked 27. He was the first catcher off the board. Reminder, this is a two catcher, 15 team roado league. So there is usually an emphasis on getting an early round catcher. And Drake Baldwin, since going back from the injury, the oblique injury, which there's a chance that it just kind of like affected him longer than we thought, but he hasn't looked as good, but Chris still on paper, like the skill set looks really, really strong. Makes a lot of contact, hits the ball hard, hits near the top of a really good Atlanta Braze lineup. I don't know that it should be a second round pick, but I don't think it's crazy for him to be

37:59maybe the top catcher drafted. Now that Ben Rice does not have catcher eligibility. Yeah, and I think one thing we're gonna have to talk a lot about this offseason is the way catcher has kind of fallen apart in the second half to the point where when I was looking it up the other day, I think Freddie Firmin has been a top 10 catcher in fantasy in the second half of the season. Like as like a less than a half time player. So it's gotten, you know, one of the big talking points in the first half of the season was, oh my God, catcher is no longer a wasteland, all these breakouts. And then, you know, Langaleers breaks down. And I mean, obviously, Carl Rally's kind of been terrible all season with the exception of, I guess the time since this draft happened. So it's, there is still an edge to be found at the catcher position if you are willing to pay the price. I don't know if I'm willing to jump that for Drake Baldwin, but he was, I think he's played every single day

39:03that he has not been on the I.L. He's de-hanging a bunch in the second half since Sean Murphy came back. Like if he is what we think he is, what he's looked like this season, that's a huge edge. So yeah, I think there's very, very much a defensible draft pick there. Just for reference where some other catchers went in this draft, Shailing Lears went at pick 39 as the second catcher off the board. Then in the fourth round, we had Hunter Goodman, Dylan Dingler, Samuel Basayo, and William Contreras, all those names again in the fourth round. At the two, three turn, we see two names again who have, I was gonna say have not been drafted this high before, but now I'm remembering two years ago, Jackson Meryl actually was a second round pick, but Jackson Meryl back in the second round and Miguel Vargas here at the turn, at the two, three turn. So Meryl, since the start of June, he has been a stud and he is entering the prime of his career, power and speed has been there. So you love all that. And then Miguel Vargas, much like we've talked about

40:03with a Jordan Walker, with a South Stewart, this is a former top prospect. He is finally figuring things out. He plays on an ascending White Sox team, pretty good White Sox lineup. And again, he has third base eligibility. So, Boba, what'd you think about these two? Again, we're not, Meryl, we've seen in the second round before, but Miguel Vargas, it's like, whoa, whoa, now we have to use a second or a third round pick to get him on our teams. Yeah, the Vargas was the sticker shock in this one, because Meryl, I wasn't gonna take him over South Stewart, but I was kinda sitting there like, he's a second round pick for me right now, because we're seeing him come back into form to when he was an early pick to your points. I'm still a believer, 23 years old, we're good there. Miguel Vargas was the surprise, but it was a combination of things. First, Rob really wanted Vargas. He wasn't coming back to him on the turn. So you got that, you got to keep that in mind at this point. The third base thing is tremendous, as you mentioned as well, because in theory, if you don't put Stewart there, that's the third third base went off the board. And there's not many more after that if you really want to get after it.

41:04But Vargas, we've seen the power, we've seen a little speed as well, which is actually a little. The average hasn't crushed you, like it has in years past. So there's like an avenue where you could see a lot of success with them. The quality of contact metrics from Vargas are outstanding. Again, it's the ballard, his barrel rate, his art hit rate, all the things you want to see are great. It's just finally getting that extended run that we've wanted to, that the Dodgers just don't do with prospects because they have too many players they pay for. So now Vargas is getting his chance and maybe there's another gear, even if there isn't though, that floor at third base, you can almost make an argument there that this, like it's still surprised me when I saw it. I'm not gonna say it didn't, but the more I've looked at it and thought about it, it makes a little bit of sense. I'm always a little wary of paying full price for the one year breakout. It goes wrong pretty often, Jack's a mirror last year. But I love that Miguel Vargas is running through the finish line. I mean, look, there's still about three and a half weeks left

42:05as we're talking, maybe he doesn't get another hit, although he had two more on Thursday. But entering play on Thursday, he had a 366 Wobin, the first half, 366 Wobin, the second half. That's what I wanna see from my breakouts is, is it not just a couple of hot months propping up the whole line? No, he was fading a little bit in July, but even then 741 OPS is not bad. He's still hit for power. He's had a 224 ISO or better in every month of the season. So the power has been there the whole time, and it's just kinda, when things have gone poorly for him, it's just been the rabbit letting him down. So this is about as legit of a breakout as you could hope for. Yeah, I'm right there too. I mean, there was a little sticker shock when I first saw it, but man, you'd dive in and it could wind up being a 35, 15 season. He's underperformed, the expected status year. XBA says he should be more like a 270 hitter.

43:06The plate discipline is great, makes a lot of contact. Good, I had the plate, he walks as well. Again, ascending white socks lineup, I think they're gonna be even better. They have more prospects coming on the way next year. So yeah, it's a big prize, but I think I'd be in there on Miguel Vargas as well. He stole two bases today. He's up to 15 now. Might even go to 3520, which is crazy. That's the biggest thing that I'm struggling with with him is is the speed reel. I agree. He was a stolen based guy in the minors, I believe. Yeah, he had a 16 steel season, but that had not been there. He's not a, he's like a 70th percentile sprint speed guy. 79th percentile, that's pretty good. Yeah, yeah, maybe, maybe. Yeah, I like it. All right, let's take our final break when we return and we'll jump around to some more picks. Again, we'll talk about Paul's schemes. Where did he fall in this draft? We'll do that right after this. Can you believe Bob's discount furniture opened 35 years ago? Back in 1991, land lines ruled the day. You could not binge watch your favorite shows

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45:09Stop in this Labor Day weekend to celebrate 35 years of Bob's discount furniture. Welcome back in fantasy at baseball today. We are recapping the first draft for 2027 here with Casey Buella. And again, this draft, the annual meatball draft hosted by Rob D.P. H.R.O. at Deadpool hitter on X, great player as well. And he was the one who drafted Miguel Vargas. Couple of their interesting followers into the third round now. Ronald Acunia at pick 32, Nick Kurtz at pick 34, Francisco Lindor at pick 37. So two veterans in Acunia and Lindor, who down seasons, injuries for both of those guys, I mean, just lots of injuries for Acunia in his entire career. And then Nick Kurtz, a younger player who looked awesome when he was healthy. But we just kind of have some indecision. It's kind of ambiguous right now dealing with that thumb injury and whether or not he'll be healthy for next year. I think we all assume that he'll be fine. And obviously one of the best sluggers in the game when he's healthy.

46:09Bob, what did you think about those three names in particular guys that we typically see in the first round or around the first round falling to the third in Acunia, Nick Kurtz, and Francisco Lindor? The Kurtz fall was interesting probably in line because the injuries he was kind of limping to the finish line with, but in theory, still the second first basement off the board, which is a whole other talking point for another day. That might surprise some people over the races and others. But Kurtz, OK, I get Lindor annoyed me. I was so hoping he was falling to be pleased to get slipped in and slipping. I love Lindor. I've had him for like five, three years of feels like. And I was like, OK, a third round of the door would be so sweet because that's not going to happen. Now that he's healthy, he's starting to hit again. People are going to see this and be like, OK, he deserves to be back in the second round. That's just my two cents with Lindor. So that was a great fall. And then he asked about Acunia. Acunia is a wild car, guys. Like you started the show talking about Otani and his injuries. And I'm not saying Otani's not a first round pick. I'm just saying you got to get the brain thinking that it's maybe not automatic.

47:09And that's what Acunia is doing to people right now because he has not bounced back from these injuries the way you would hope he would. And honestly, the way he's played right now, he's not a third round pick in my mind. And I'm not saying he can't get back to that. But his fall made sense. So it was more like, when was he going to get picked? Was the million dollar question? Because he's not running as much as he like the power is not there. He's just the total packages in there with Acunia. But he went early round three. The one thing I will say is he does have five steals on six attempts, I think, since the start of August. So that's because I kind of thought after the second hamstring injury, it might just be done. Like the stealing might be done. And you'd need him to be like a 40-homer guy to justify the early round price tag. And if he's still going to be 20 steals, that does soften the landing a little bit. But I don't really know one way or the other about that. Stolen bases are, I think, the hardest thing to project

48:10because it's not just about physical ability. It's about how much you want to run. And this season, Francisco Lendor, doesn't want to run. He's got three stolen bases. Is that just the new norm for him? And he's just a five-steel guy? If that's the case, then I think it's going to be really hard to justify a third-round pick for a guy who has always kind of been a little weaker in batting average. Max is out around 30 homers. Good player. But if it's a five-stolen base player, I don't know how valuable that is as a third-rounder. But he could come out and steal 30 bases next season and I wouldn't be shocked. Akunya, there's a lot of volatility in the bat. Two of the last four seasons, I think, have been like a sub-750 OPS now. That's not good. That's not going to get the job done. I still think he has number one overall player upside. As long as the stolen bases are somewhat there. If it's 20 to 25, I think he can still do it.

49:11But that's a big question mark. I think this is where you start to see a lot of the guys where it's like, I don't know how I feel about that. But we're in a little bit of a transitionary period in the player pool. A lot of the guys who have been stalwarts for the past decade are starting to fall off a little bit. And so how much do you account for that? In Akunya's case, because he's still relatively young, I think it'll be 29 next season. I'm a little more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But I think I also had him as a top four pick this season. And that's blown up in my face. So at some point, maybe I do have a lesson to learn about my continued faith in Ronald and Akunya. But that one's tough. I will say Kurtz is a little bit surprising how much he fell. Because I just think you can pencil him in for 40 homers if he stays healthy. I know he wasn't quite on that pace this season, but I think the skill set is a 40 homer guy.

50:14And he got a little lucky wire. I think the skill set is just as strong as it was. Yeah. He's cheaper now. I don't really have a concern about that injury lingering into next season. So I would guess Nick Kurtz 30, 34 here. I think that's going to be closer to the floor for where he's picked next season. I think that's good, cool. Yeah, I like that as well. I think in hindsight, it would make some sense for Nick Kurtz to maybe go where Gunnar Henderson went in the middle, late second round. I think it's kind of a marker. Once you see Kyle Schwarber go, I kind of feel like, all right, Nick Kurtz should probably go in a similar range. Obviously, Schwarber is you till only way more proven, but I think it's a pretty similar skill set between both of those guys. Kyle Schwarber and Nick Kurtz. Back to Lendor for a second, I will just point out, know the steals are down this year. He dealt with that cash train for a large majority of the season. And then once he was back, the met season was already over. So by the time he was back in late June, they were already pretty much out of it. So I don't think he really needed to push the envelope.

51:15I don't think he's gonna get back to being like a 30 steel guy if I had to guess now on whatever September 6th for next year. Probably expect like 15 to 20 steals from Lendor. But yeah, I think he'll probably provide, I will bet that he will provide more seals than he did this past season. No mention of Paul Schien's just yet. So we are already into like the end of the third round. Paul Schien's went in the fifth round of this draft at pick 71 as the SP 17 off the board. He went just after Garrick Cole who went to Bubba in this draft. And he went right before Blake Snow and Logan Webb. I have no idea what to do with Paul Schien's. I'm pretty sure him going at pick 71 in this draft means nobody knows what to do with Paul Schien's right now. Obviously he has not looked great for the past like 10, 12 starts. His velocity has been down. Is he pitching hurt? I feel like this is one bubble that can go either way. It's like, all right, if he has a strong September

52:17maybe he'll push back up into the third second, second third round, something like that. Or if he just continues to fall off, he might even be drafted later than this. Or we'll find out that there's an underlying injury and then maybe he's not even being drafted at all. Yeah, we started out the show talking about uncertainty. When it comes to Paul Schien's, he is dear to the top of that list. When it comes to starting pitching, so many pitchers already have question marks about is there arm going to fall off? When they retire, like sale, he's old but eventually father time, right? So many questions. But at least they're healthy right now. They're still dominating on the mound. Schien's is technically healthy for all we know. But that lower velocity, the recent lack of success, is a massive question mark to Schien's. Now could he flip it to your point? Yeah, he could turn the switch. Maybe it's needs an offseason to relax. Maybe he becomes a more of a pitcher than a thrower. There's all those kind of philosophies out there. I've seen a couple retired guys like Pedro Martinez and stuff tweeting about how he's fine. You could work with this. Like who knows? But Chris Sales even come out and said, I'm not concerned about Paul Schien's.

53:17Everybody it is, it's laughable. So who knows what it is? They know way better than I do about the game of pitching. But from a fantasy standpoint, and a draft is taking place in the middle of August, those uncertainties in Paul Schien's where I can go and get other pitchers that to me are still, you know, maybe not SP1 ones, but like really close to SP1s, I'm gonna take my chances. They're like, I think Garrett Cole is on the verge of being back to one of those top pitchers that we want in baseball, his injury. So I was willing to take that chance over Schien's that has so many question marks right now. Chris, we've talked a lot about Schien's. Obviously, like we don't know what's going on. We have no idea. I think the rest of September will tell us a lot heading into next season for Paul Schien's. But just recently the other day, we said, well, probably rank him as an SP2 in that 13 to 24 range. But honestly, I probably will rank him there out of respect. I don't know that I will be the one to actually draft him in that range. It feels impossible to say definitively anything

54:20about Paul Schien's right now. He has the 397 ERA for the full season. That's two runs higher than it was last season. Obviously he's been even worse in the second half. And then the peripherals still look good. You know, like 10.8 K per nine, 2.7 walks per nine, less than a home run per inning. I like, on the whole, he doesn't look broken. But there are, there was a piece on baseball perspectives at this point last week that kind of looked into what's mechanically changed for Paul Schien's. And there's some subtleties. He's moved on the mound a little bit closer to the first base side, I believe. And he just doesn't, he doesn't look quite as fluid with his delivery, whether that's some kind of underlying injury. I've seen speculation about like his conditioning. He just doesn't, he's not moving quite as well through his delivery in a way that he's lowered his arm slot. And it's just kind of, everything just looks a little worse

55:23in a way that's making everything worse. Man, if we get through this off season and there's no talk of an injury and everything's fine, it's gonna be really hard for me not to rank him as a top 12 starting pitcher. We're talking about the best pitcher, the best young pitcher since Dwight Gooden. The guy that he had one good two thirds of a season and was drafted as the SP one. And then two bad months is enough to drop him to, you know, outside of the top 15. Yeah, I mean, I'm not even saying it's wrong. It's just, it is hard for me to wrap my mind around it one way or the other. I think he's gonna be absolutely impossible to rank. I think I'm gonna guess whenever draft season happens next year, there are going to be a lot of very strongly declarative Twitter threads about Paul Schienz.

56:26And this is a guy that I just, I don't think it's gonna make any sense to have a strong opinion one way or the other. I just, we don't know. And I know that's an unsatisfying answer and the audience wants us to have the strong, tell me exactly what to do with Paul Schienz. Dude, I don't know. Like this is, I don't know if I can remember a pitcher going from best in the league to unusable without an injury at 24. Like it's like if Spencer Strider never got hurt but all the results were the same, right? Like it's just, it's so hard to make sense of, I wish I had a better answer. And I think again, you see that in this draft kind of that, you know, uncertainty is Paul Schienz going at pick 71 as the SP 17 off the board. These are 15 really, really good fantasy baseball players who all passed on Paul Schienz at least four times each. And then obviously you went in the fifth round.

57:27So it's, I will say, stuff. I think I feel better about Paul Schienz at 71 than Blake's now at 73. That's fair. That's the one just, I will probably, I get hurt myself playing. I will never draft Blake's like, I get it. Man, like, woof, the two good months every year. It's a big headache to get two good months out of a guy, right? Yeah. I mean, I guess it's, I guess it's easier to do when the person who drafted Blake's now also took Terrick Scooblin's second round. So you, you're so with that. Speaking of pitching, I'm just going to very quickly run through the pitching landscape of this draft. So Miss Yerowski was the SP one. He went 12th overall, Terrick Scooblin, the SP two, he went pick 18, Christopher Sanchez, SP three, at pick 22, Cam Schletler, at pick 24, Yamamoto, at pick 25, Hazus Luzardo, at pick 28, Chris Sale, as the SP seven, at pick 29. Those were the first two rounds. Moving into the next two rounds, there was Dylan Seas at SP eight, pick 33, Chase Burns

58:31went at pick 40 to Bubba, Yurrie Perez, the tenth starting pitcher off the board, at pick 45, Gavin Williams, SP 11, pick 47, that went to your co-host Ryan Bloomfield, and then Logan Gilbert, SP 12, pick 56. So that's the first four rounds, only 12 starting pitchers drafted. Bubba, it feels like the room was kind of hesitant here to draft starting pitchers early, which I totally get this early out. It's like, we could get injuries and many things could change between now and next year. But talk to us about your Chase Burns, SP nine, pick 40, pick. We know that he's being slow played for the rest of the season, but when he pitched a normal starting pitcher, he looked like one of the best in the game. Yeah, this is an unlikely Bubba pick, is what this was for anybody. That's listened to my show. Ryan was shocked. I took Chase Burns, because I've always scared these guys to throw a million miles an hour and what's gonna come of it situations. And when it comes to Chase Burns,

59:31it's like with Miz, with Schlittler and all these guys. I keep saying it is, you said, Frank, you need to change kind of your mindset on the price tags. For me, I always gotta tell myself, these guys are healthy now, get what you can get out of them, if injuries happen, injuries happen. We can't predict these things. And what Chase Burns, to your point, when he was pitching, the ratios were great. The biggest concern entering the season was kind of like, the walks, what would Chase Burns, they're there. He's got his innings next year. He should be free to roam, barred, and he kind of injuries. So I took a guy in round three, where I figure if he puts together another good year next year, it's around one or two pick. And to real quickly, you mentioned the hesitation. Yes, this room is always hesitant now because of so many questions leading forward. You guys know come March, or whenever our month leading in to drafting is, a lot of these guys are gonna go earlier in drafts. So you just see it in this draft every time. And then, but you also, if you just look at the board, just look at the colors. Once it starts, the faucet is on. And it's go time for some people. Yeah, and it's also worth noting,

1:00:32relief pitchers are way cheaper right now than they will be. In January, February, March, I do want to ask, you went Jordan Walker, South Stewart, Chase Burns, Andy Pies, he's a little older. And then Garicol, what are those guys gonna talk about? Garicol's like 20 years older than the rest of your team. Like, this is gonna be a weird locker room dynamic. Garicol's just gonna be telling to be quiet anymore now. That's about all that was gonna be, but yeah, I know it's a very weird dynamic because but then you throw Jeremy Paine in there, and it gets a little better for a second. I love that first. Yeah, but yeah, I know, that's always fun. Again, I can go on side tracks all day. I love how you mentioned that. When you build a team, you're just physically think like, what would these guys do hanging out to? If they're a real team, that's a great, great point thing. Yuri Perez, I will just point out again, as the SP 10 here, I think that will catch some people by surprise, especially, especially this draft was done two weeks ago. His last two starts, you know, he's had some blowups here. Chris, I lean towards, I think Yuri is kind of wearing down

1:01:33a little bit here. He's up to up over 140 innings this season total. Last year it was around 120. So I think it's kind of acceptable to think he's like wearing down a little bit, but you know, for most of the second half, it looked like he's kind of stepping into that ace outcome. Well, what do you think about him being drafted as a potential SP one? Feels a little early, but then you look at the guys behind him and Gavin Williams has had an up and down season. Logan Gilbert has had his struggles. Zach Wheeler, the last month has kind of been a disaster for him. I can't, like I don't know if I'm gonna rank Yuri Perez as my SP 10, but there are certainly ace outcomes in his arm. And if you can project him to get to 175, 180 innings next season, then yeah, I think the talent is certainly there and it's not like there's anybody after him who looks like an absolute can't miss pitcher anyways.

1:02:34So it might be a little early, but anybody who listens to the podcast certainly knows I'm not gonna be pounding the table for Gavin Williams to go earlier because that's gonna be tough. So it's a little weird for the starting pitchers especially right now. I will quickly read off the SP 13 through 23. These were the pitchers in rounds five through six here. Zach Wheeler went at SP 13, followed by Drew Raspison, Peyton Toley up at SP 15. I think that's gonna be a fun talking point as well. Gareth Cole at SP 16, Paul Schien's Blake Snell, Logan Webb, Logan Henderson, SP 20, Kyle Harrison, Kate Anderson at SP 22, and Jacob Gragham at SP 23. So just a very early look at the close to top 24 starting pitchers here being drafted in 2027. Let's wrap up with a quick recap of Bubba's first 15 picks. Again, they draft the first 15. This will be a 15, a 50 round draft.

1:03:36They'll pick it up again at some point in, like November, Bubba. Yeah, it gets early on early. First used to be seven rounds now it's up to 15. And then it used to be November. Now in at BC opens their rooms in October. So pretty much once they open up the draft rooms, they create our room and we start drafting. Yeah. So your first five round picks, you had Jordan Walker, South Stewart Chase Burns, Andy Pahez, this was before the fractured hand, and Garakol, we mentioned those five picks just a couple of minutes ago. Round six through 10, you know, Jeremy Pena, David Bednar, Liam Hicks, Zach Gelloff, and Kate Cavalli, man. I love the Kate Cavalli pick. That is, that feels really, really good. Talk to me about your top 10, 10 round picks here and how you built this out. Yeah, we kind of talked the first five, but like the first four hitters, it's all power, speed floors, hopefully the average, Stephen Pahez runs. Like, we can work with that and then we've got two ace pitchers to go there with a Burns and Cole. But when I went six through 10, Chris mentioned he loves Jeremy Pena.

1:04:36That's been a player I've tried to roster everywhere I could this year as either starting short stuff or my middle infielder. Like I double up short stuff quickly. He's just been banged up a lot this year, but he has for average power speed going that late. I'll take that for if I'd, without getting an early round short, short stop, bednar just a chance on late saves because it gets real bleak after that point. He fell because he was a free agent. Liam Hicks, because catchers, catchers. But I want to get that go off as a player I love, multi position out there, power speed, starting to click again this year. He'll be in that wonderful ballpark one more season before they make, maybe make their voyage to Vegas. And then Kate Cavalli, like I was over the moon that he fell. I was sitting there just watching the picks come through going fall, fall, fall, especially because he's my SP three. Like to me, he's not an SP three in reality. Like when this, if this takes place in March, Kate Cavalli is not around 10 pick unless something horrible happens the last three weeks of the season, but I love him. The strikeouts are legit.

1:05:37The ratios are getting there because his, his command has gotten much better as he keeps going. And like the last two and a half months have been elite pitching for Kate Cavalli. One question I do have is at the time of this draft, Bryce Harper had just moved to the outfield. And now he's going to have outfield eligibility for next season in all leagues. I think he's up to 23, probably going to get to like 40 by the end of the season. Would you have taken him instead of Pa has there? If you had known he would have outfield eligibility or is getting the five category contributions more important for you? For me at that point, it was the five category plus love harbor. Don't get me wrong. We early on we talked age. Harp is not as young as people think and he's been banged up a lot in his time. And it's just been a thing with me. I think he's a steady Eddie. Like if you on boring is beautiful, Harper is one of those guys. But for me at this, at this point in the season, like obviously we're drafting so early, I was going to take the upside with Pa has sure.

1:06:37Yeah, but you got to think about it like this, Baba. If you draft Bryce Harper at least, Gary Cole has someone to talk to in the club. There's that and I only draft the elite players. So Harper is not not allowed apparently back over 900 OPS man. I mean, I'm sorry. I mean fully sarcasm. No, I know. The GM saying that is like one of the more ugly things you'll ever hear. So come on man. Back to Kovale. Hey, it worked. It worked. It did work. Well, back to Kovale for just a second. Chris, you and I spoke about him recently. And I was like, look, if he finishes out the season like this, he might be drafted as a top 24 starting pitcher. And I still stand by that. I think if he just finishes out the season with what he's been doing, I think it's a quality start in seven straight, seven or each straight. I think he's probably going closer to that round six range with guys like Logan Henderson and Kate Anderson and Nolan McLean. I think he's more so in that as a, he's not as young as you think, but not as well established pitcher who obviously flashed some really nice skills this year strikeouts,

1:07:38ground balls. And obviously improving the walks as well. So I love that. Kate Kovale picked. Raid Kovale, I just want to add, I believe because Jacob Mizorowski's streak of three earned run or less starts ended last night. It did. Yeah. Kate Kovale, I think he has three earned runs allowed or less in 27 of 29 starts to lead baseball. Wow. That's crazy. Wow. Some of those three are like, there was one where he gave up three earned runs in two and a third inning. So it's like, it's not they weren't all great starts. Obviously, you know, he got off to a kind of rough start, but that is, that is one of the more surprising stats I've heard this season. And then rounds 11 through 15. You took Shane Baz, Ozzy Albe's Kyle Teal, Esmeralyn Valdez and Walbert Arania. I know your co-host, Ryan Bloomfield gives you a lot of crap about Walbert Arania. The whip is very scary. The dude is talented, man. Like he's legit got awesome stuff. And to get him here in round 15, I think it's worth a shot.

1:08:39Hey, so we SP five, like we're looking at it. We've played Dresche happy before you need depth. Otherwise, it'll kill you. And that's what's killed me a lot is pitching. I don't do well. And yeah, Ryan gives me a lot of flack for your A-N-Ir. But I also got him back mid-season. We were kind of comparing blind players and he loves Jose Soriano and I read Walbert Uranian's cat line. And he's like, oh, it's sorry. I said, no, that's the guy you hate. And they're the same pitcher, but he's younger. And I, we had fun with that one because they aren't identical almost. And this is when Soriano was doing his thing in Anaheim. And yeah, I'm pretty pumped on that. It's just, it's going to be wild to see where this picks up from. But it's always a fun draft year five of doing this. And yeah, it's, it's a good exercise to get the mind flown. But then you got to get back and realize we still have to finish this year. That was the way too early. Meatball draft, again, hosted by Rob D.P. H.O. when I thank Casey Bubba for stopping by. You can find his work over at baseball HQ and fantasy pros. Listen to him on bench with Bubba, as well as Bubba in the bloom. You can follow him on X at BD and trick Bubba.

1:09:40Anything else that you'd like to promote before we get up out of here? Now that's about it. Bubba in the bloom was the main thing for me these days. Me and Ryan twice a week. So come check that out. Support the show. I look forward to seeing you all in Arizona. That's always a great time. If you guys haven't been there, you have questions. Feel free to ask. It's a great time for baseball fans and fantasy baseball fans. Yeah, 100% again. First pitch Arizona hosted by baseball HQ. November 5th through the 8th, the Sheraton at Mesa, Rigglyville. Rigglyville will be out there hosting podcasts, having some drinks, watching Arizona Folly games. It's going to be a great time. So I'm going to force everyone to go out to karaoke. That's my goal. I think that's not even that. I love to carry out this about missing it last year. Yeah. So I'm going to force myself to go to karaoke is what I'm saying. There you go. All right. We are going to wrap there for Chris and Bubba. Thank you all for listening to fantasy baseball today. Make sure to leave us a five star rating and review. And we will be back again tomorrow night with a very long weekend recap.

1:10:42We'll see you then. Bye-bye. MUSIC Paramount podcasts. Out of the shadows of Paramount Mountain, three heroes level up. Rats, Tyrus and Gileus battle against the evil giant Deathhater to save the kingdom of Euria from so much peril. These are knives, ordinary dwarves, bad brothers, sentience killers, and swords for being death armor warrior. Existing that thing. Whatever that is, so much peril and heroes. This is just the beginning of the story of Hampton Square. Golden Axe, new series streaming September 16th on Paramount Plus.