JotCast | Paul Sporer Rotographs Chat

Paul Sporer Rotographs Chat

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John Olerud's Helmet

1:35

Rank these Pauls: Konerko, Sporer, Bunyon, Shore and Revere

Paul Sporer

1:36

Konerko, Revere, Sporer (I like myself, I'm not going self depreciation here!), Bunyan, casting a pall, Shore

Colton

1:37

Hey Paul! Hope you're well this afternoon! Offered a trade in my league, sending Pablo Lopez for Tyler O'Neill with even salaries and satisfying needs on both teams. Do you think that's fair value or am I undervaluing Lopez/overvaluing O'Neill?

Paul Sporer

1:38

This feels really fair. Both have a looming health question but when healthy are studs in their respective fields. This checks out for me. I would lean O'Neill (bc I always lean hitter over pitcher in keeper trades when talent & needs are essentially equal), but I have no issue w/either side

Guest

1:38

How do we know when to give up on a prospect in fantasy? How much time do you give them to figure it out? I am thinking about Tork, Kelenic, Abrams, Adell, Gore, etc.

Paul Sporer

1:44

We can never really know, right? But I think we have to look at core skills and make the best decisions with what we have. With Adell & Kelenic, their major swing-and-miss issues create a rough uphill path to figuring it out and I've definitely lowered my ceiling of both. They're both still under 600 PA (just 1 PA apart at 558/557) and while I will make decisions about players before the 1000 PA threshold, I still recognize small samples and the volatility of them.

Abrams and Tork are essentially baseball babies with sub-405 PA apeice (405 cherry picked obv bc Tork has 404, but it's still a small sample). I haven't made any real change on either's outlook right now and I'll gladly take the discount based on their unimpressive debuts. Gore's 70 IP has him in a similar class to these two in terms of not making any changes to his outlook, but he was also better than them relatively speaking as there's something to build on with a 23% K rate and mid-4.00s SIERA/FIP (which isn't great, but not bad either)

tumtum

1:44

Why are you into O.Cabrera?

Paul Sporer

1:47

Power/speed supersub which gives him multiple ways to extended PT. If he finds 500 PA, there's mid-teens HR and SB potential, even if the swing-and-miss short circuits his AVG a bit

Dave

1:47

I own Alek Thomas in a dynasty league but I’m not especially enthusiastic about it. Should I hang onto him or trade him now while he still has a bit of his top prospect glow?

Paul Sporer

1:48

Maybe check in on the offers and see if you like one but I understand if the returns are underwhelming bc of his bleak playing time outlook right now.

JWR

1:48

Pet peeve alert--with all of the hundreds of stats available on the site, how can Fangraphs not have OPS allowed for pitchers? Any chance that this could be added? Thanks.

Paul Sporer

1:48

I can certainly ask!

JWR

1:50

Appreciate the "all in one place" fantasy page that has been set up at Fangraphs but it would be better if the dates of each individual article was listed since some of the pieces are "hot off the press" while many of the articles are months old and presumably need to be updated.

Paul Sporer

1:50

I do that with the Mining the News & Market Watch ones for that exact reason

Mr. Fister

1:50

Is the shift ban being overrated? Teams are just going to put one guy a hair left of second base with two others on the first base side to essentially "shift" anyways. 2B not being allowed on the outfield grass is really the only thing that changes, am I wrong?

Paul Sporer

1:50

Nope, I've been making a very similar point all offseason!

1:52

JWR, I got a quick response... while we don't have OPS straight up, we do have OBP, SLG, and wOBA on the splits leaderboard https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/splits-leaderboards?splitArr=&splitA...

Hey Holmes

1:52

Hi Paul. Do you think Clay Holmes, barring injury, can remain the Yankees closer all year. He had some high highs and some low lows last year. Wonder who shows up in 2023.

Paul Sporer

1:52

Healthy Holmes absolutely can, yes. That health - as it is for soooo many people - is the key!

Scrapper

1:53

What starting pitcher do you believe you like more than the masses (and why)?

Paul Sporer

1:58

At the high end, Shane Bieber. I still think he's an absolute stud and believe the K rate can push back toward the his 2019-21 level of 33%. He is going as SP16, but he's 7th for me

todd

1:58

Where I'm picking in the first round of my two catcher keep 5 AL only, Varsho is likely to be the best player available. Worth taking him when I already have Rutschman?

Paul Sporer

2:05

I'm certainly open to it. Because Varsho is the wonderful non-catching catcher, his volume isn't held down by the position like most Cs. So whereas with a standard catcher I might think it was an over-commitment of resources and the lowered volume could hurt you a bit as opposed to getting a regular hitter, Varsho is a regular hitter in terms of volume while qualifying at C plus there's the added benefit of draining the C pool even further for your leaguemates (without hurting yourself in the process)

Kyle

2:05

What's your approach to drafting deGrom this year? In at current price or just plain out?

Paul Sporer

2:06

I'm not entirely out. He's not someone I would stack on multiple teams, but he's still inning-for-inning the best the game has to offer and we're just not good enough at predicting injuries to say he is definitely going to be limited again this year so I'm open to taking the shot with him. The added injury risk he carries over other starters is mitigated by his overall talent and the fact that every pitcher carries massive injury risk just by virtue of pitching

Luke S

2:06

Still recovering from the devastating Expos World Series loss

Paul Sporer

2:08

It was truly brutal

No joy in Mudville tonight. 🇨🇦⚾️ twitch.tv/videos/1729780…

We're trading Shui tonight!

Jeff

2:09

Ranking Paul Konerko ahead of Paul Revere feels like treason

Paul Sporer

2:09

Revere hit one homer, Konerko had 439!

Grab your 3B

2:09

how would you rank? Muncy, Jung, Rendon, Donaldson

Paul Sporer

2:11

Jung, Muncy, Rendon, Donaldson -- https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/paul-sporers-2023-third-base-rankings/

2:13

50 feels too low for JD, but what's weird is that my projection really isn't too far from the pack on his FG page, but that slotted 50th on the projection sheet I'm using (https://www.smartfantasybaseball.com/)

Jalen Rose

2:13

I know who Scrapper is in real life! (He's in a Strat League of mine)

Paul Sporer

2:13

Scrapper, you've been found out!

Colton

2:13

Is there a world where we see Lux get a full run this season? Or are they going to run a platoon with him and Rojas as the short side of it?

Paul Sporer

2:14

I feel like / am hoping he can play OF when Rojas is playing short, but right now he is being considered the everyday SS: https://www.si.com/mlb/dodgers/news/gavin-lux-dodgers-gm-confirms-the-...

Pedro

2:14

I can keep Framber at $17 or Springs at $6 in an AL only 5x5. Help! Worried about Framber's workload

Paul Sporer

2:15

I like Framber, but he's not $11 better than Springs for me. Springs had a season to take pride in and there's reason to believe he can continue being a stud in 2023 so sign me up for him at $6

Tommy

2:16

Hey Paul, SV/HD league who would you rather keep? J. McCarthy in the 15th or Andres Munoz in the 22nd?

Paul Sporer

2:18

Love Muñoz and his insane upside, but I'm going McCarthy. RPs are just super volatile and I have to go for the guy who has a real shot at 30 SBs

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