Paul Sporer’s Baseball Chat – September 25th, 2024

Paul Sporer: Hello everyone!!!! I can’t believe we only have 5 days left of regular season action!!

Ted: Weekly league. Rosters locked. Tied for first. Want to puke every night. Baseball!

Paul Sporer: It’s the best-worst feeling ever!

Dave: <to the tune of the William Tell Overture> Gritty tigs gritty tigs gritty tigs tigs tigs/Gritty tigs gritty tigs gritty tigs tigs tigs/Gritty tigs gritty tigs gritty tigs tigs tiiiiiggggs/Wenceel Perez

Paul Sporer: god i love Wenceel!

Tim: Is it me, or is the Jobe/Miller thing pretty odd? Why wait until the 11th hour to call the kid up while dumping the year-long vet?

Paul Sporer: I just think Miller couldn’t trusted in leveraged spots w/his HR issues. As for Jobe, they’d have called him up earlier if they felt he was ready. Maaaybe they’d have pushed a bit earlier if they were in contention earlier, but it just happened to break this way

Jung Bong Jovi: No question here.  Just saying thank you for all of your help this year.  Defending my title and facing my brother AGAIN in the finals.  Same matchup as last years semi-finals and finals even.  What a strange season.

Paul Sporer: Happy to help and best of luck! Good luck to you!!

Mike Trout: How concerned are you that Hurricane Helene will make a mess of the schedule for some teams this week and destroy all of our well-made plans?

Paul Sporer: It’d be nice to see Trout on the Weather Channel breaking it down… but yeah it’s definitely a concern. Obviously not the biggest concern when we’re dealing w/inclement weather like this, the health and safety of folks is paramount, but it would stink if it flipped the last 5 days upside down and cancelled a ton of games.

Kave Dingman: 12 team, NL only, Out of the money. Is it worth throwing a minimal FAAB bid at Camilo Doval?

Paul Sporer: If anyyyy save can be useful, maybe, but he wasn’t terribly sharp in that 23rd SV on 9/20 so keep expectations in check

Guest: First, a big THANK YOU!  Won my points league title for the 2nd time in 3 seasons last week, in the finals this week in my other league, due largely to Sleeper & the Bust.  Appreciate all you do!

How would you rank Festa/Olson/Rocker tomorrow in a standard points league?

Paul Sporer: Let’s goooo!! Congrats!!! That’s a tight trio but I lean Olson/Festa/Rocker. I think Olson can get 5 IP with 70ish pitches (he went 58 last time out) against this TBR team. Festa v. MIA isn’t a bad matchup at all but of course there’s the raincloud hanging over MIN making him a little tougher bet. Rocker is K god so he can score nicely even if he only goes 3-4 IP but he’s still my lowest trust of these 3

Does Chewbacca use TP?: Speaking of Tigers…how is Javier Baez still on the roster…

Paul Sporer: Well I mean he’s still under contract. Maybe they move on from him this offseason and just give him his money, but we know that teams usually just ride out these contracts

Ken: Gun to your head, who snags the wild cards?

Paul Sporer: Tigers/Braves. Although both ARI and ATL have tough weekend matchups (SDP for ARI, KCR for ATL) so that could be down the very last inning on Sunday between ’em

Jimmy: I’m terrible at this kind of thing, so this may just be recency bias talking here, but when is the last time we had this tight of a finish for so many teams? I remember the multiple tie breakers in 2018, but I feel like I need to watch six different games today

Paul Sporer: I’m also terrible at remembering the previous times things got this crazy, but I always love the game 163s and I’m pretty bummed they got rid of em. When you asked this, I instantly thought of allll the way back in 2011 when Dan Johnson hit that crazy HR for the Rays and the Red Sox choked v. BAL

EonADS: Also wanted to say thank you for a fun season and for nerding out with me over the SP charts. That was fun!

I also want to see where you speculate Andres Giminez ending up in the draft order next year. His steals and everyday playing time are valuable, but the bat is a bummer.

Paul Sporer: I had a great time chatting w/y’all day to day in the SP charts! Off the dome, I’m thinking round 12-16 area for Gimenez depending on lg size and format. Only 9 HRs, but 30 SBs and still just 26

Joe: Wondering what your thoughts for 2025 for Adell who seemed to be making progress before getting hurt and Nolan Jones who has been hurt all the time it seems.

Paul Sporer: I really WANT to like Jo Adell, but I still worry about those plate skills even the improved version which still includes a 28% K rate. Jones admittedly an easy fade target this year bc of the crazy BABIP, but a big part of his down season playing just 74 gms. I think even a regressed version could’ve done 20/20 again, but this time in 560 PA instead of 424 like last yr. So assuming he’s healthy heading into 2025, I can see viewing him in that 20/20 light again and at a very discounted rate

Kave Dingman: The Camilo Doval question – I was asking – is it worth making a bid on him as a keeper for next season? What are the chances that he regains the closer role?

Paul Sporer: Ohhhhhh…. hmm, that’s a tough call. I think it’s an OK low-risk throw, but in terms of actual chances he takes the job, it’s not a certainty. Ryan Walker didn’t just take the job bc Doval flopped, Walker was amazing so I think there’s a good chance he holds it

Guest: suspect the Twins are still mathematically alive by Sunday, or is Ober done for the year? do we secretly actually want him to be done lol?

Paul Sporer: No no, we still want that start if we’re competing and have Ober rostered. It was 1 bad inning and it’s magnified by MIN’s overall suckiness this month. He was amazing at CLE the start before and then another 1 bad inning v. CIN that hurt that outing. So the bad innings obviously still count, but when it’s that one bad inning v. consistent troubles across multiple innings, I’m encouraged that he can iron through the troubles. Outside of extreme roster protection, I’m starting him v. BAL this wknd (assuming they start him, of course)

Nick: Paul Skenes your number one pitcher off the board in 2025?

Paul Sporer: Skubal for me, but Skenes is #1… the Sk-Sk boys!

Kave Dingman: There are $73 million reasons why the Tigers haven’t cut Javy Baez, yet.

Paul Sporer: LOL exactly. On the other hand, that money is spent. He’s getting it REGARDLESS so there is some credence to just letting him walk if you really don’t think he’s gonna get any better. Just pay him to peace out and let Sweeney take the role full-time next year from day 1

Ohtani’: Dodgers say he’ll get some OF play next year, probably in LF? Do you see it being more than 20-25 games?

Paul Sporer: Impossible to say, but I think it’ll be a bigger allocation of starts than 20-25, though he is back to pitching next year (at least we certainly assume so) so maybe it is sub-50 gms there

MattStats5: Oh, and thanks for your chats.  Y’all hopefully realize that us diehard baseball fans, whether we play fantasy or not, love participating in these…even if its just reading the transcript after the fact.

Paul Sporer: I underestimated by transcript readers until this year when I learned there’s a pretty decent subset of folks who read after the fact so hello to them and thank you all for coming, reading, participating! I love doing the chats. They aren’t leaving in the offseason, but there will be a couple weeks starting next week. I usually downshift in October with fewer articles, pods, and chats before dialing it back up in November for the offseason crush!

Dave: At the end of 2025 Victor Robles will be a top ____ OF

Paul Sporer: He crawled his way into the Top 70 with his Seattle surge and while I’m a long-time fan who is enjoying this surge, I’m not going to project him TOOO much higher for a full season next year. I think he’ll be in the top 55-60 OFs. His track record plus T-Mobile’s difficulty on hitters mean we can’t just extrapolate this year or anything, especially w/the .392 BABIP.

But if he holds some of the K% gains (down 10 pts to 17% w/SEA), then we could really have something here. He has great speed and some punch, so if he’s making consistent contact, there will be fantasy value!

Nick: I finished second in both my leagues this year; not ideal, but still a solid performance I’m satisfied with.  Have to give a shout out to Sleeper and the Bust for getting me on to Hunter Brown even when it looked like he was broken early on.  Where are you taking Carroll and JRod next year?

Paul Sporer: Nicely done! Stinks to miss 1st but nothing wrong with a pair of 2nd place finishes!! It looked bleak for Brown early on, but it was so nice to see him turn it around for an excellent summer. Both Carroll and J-Rod eventually bouncing back in very encouraging as neither’s struggles made a ton of sense this year and obviously went hard against expectations. I don’t think either get out of the 2nd round very often next year and I’m OK w/that.

Colton: What are we doing with Lawrence Butler next year? Top 75 pick? Top 50 even? He’s gonna get to 20-20 this week and the plate skills have held over the entire course of the second half

Paul Sporer: Such an amazing turnaround and a testament to sticking w/the numbers as his underlying metrics said he was WAY better than the .529 OPS we saw through June. He was tattooing the ball consistently but had a 5% HR/FB and .253 BABIP. Since then, a 27% HR/FB and .326 BABIP have helped fuel this incredible run that will now push him into the Top 100 picks. I don’t think his ADP will reach quite up into Top 75 but there will be plenty of hype so he could be a winter helium guy as everyone digs into his excellence

Nicholas: Just wanted to thank you and Justin for another great season, finished 2nd this year after winning the last two (My own fault for starting Detmers) and can’t wait for the next season to start.

Paul Sporer: Ty for the kind words! I, too, started Detmers last week and it has definitely cost me to this point. I can still crawl back into the money spot but my Detmers love has taken a big hit after last week (my dumbass will still draft him post-pick 300 in Winter Draft & Holds, though, lol)

Paul Sporer: Thank you all for coming out to the chats every week and filling up the queue with questions! Like I said earlier, I’ll have a couple weeks off on chats in October as we decompress. I will have an initial pitcher list up in October just for you sickos drafting super early (which I’ve done many times before… putting a moratorium on myself until November for drafts) but good luck to everyone over these last 5 days!!