Opening Day? Fantasy Baseball Tips, and Atlanta Braves Injuries

Opening Day is supposed to feel simple: everybody plays, everybody watches, and hope resets to zero. But the sport has drifted into a three-day “Opening Day” stretch, and that’s before we even get to the real problem, figuring out how to watch your own team without juggling MLB.TV, blackouts, and a pile of exclusive streaming apps. I get into why that shift matters for fans, why it kills the shared baseball vibe, and what I wish MLB would do instead.

From there, I zoom in on an Atlanta Braves season preview built around the biggest storyline: can this roster stay on the field. Last year’s injury mess still looms, and the early season list already feels too familiar. I talk through the Braves’ pitching situation, the frustration of not adding a true workhorse arm, and the lingering “what if” of Max Fried leaving for the Yankees. I also hit the controversial roster moments, including the fallout from another PED suspension, plus a blunt breakdown of the Sean Murphy trade and why Drake Baldwin gives the catching situation some real upside.

To close, I switch gears into fantasy baseball strategy with real draft recaps from my ESPN leagues. We talk points vs head-to-head value, why daily lineup discipline matters more than draft-day victory laps, and a few early targets and waiver habits that can keep you competitive all season. If you’re looking for a late pitcher to consider, I make the case for Trevor Rogers.

Subscribe for more Braves talk and fantasy check-ins, share this with a baseball friend who hates blackouts, and leave a review with your Braves prediction for the season.

Transcript

Welcome And Season Preview Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to another episode of the show. I'm your host, Nate. Today is our MLB opening day, opening week, uh season preview for the Braves for the whole season. We'll talk Atlanta Braves, we'll talk opening week, we'll talk some things going on around MLB, and we'll also do some fantasy baseball talk. I'll show you how my drafts went, good, bad, we'll find out, and talk a little bit about what's going on in fantasy baseball, and I'll check in on that periodically throughout the season. So to open, let's talk about opening day. Opening day used to be everybody plays on the same day during the day, and that was the big event, opening day. And I mean, that's become a phrase in our lexicon. It's a huge part of baseball. Baseball fans look forward to it all offseason. And now we're seeing it's not opening day anymore. It's not opening two days, it's three days. It's Wednesday night, Thursday, Friday. We've got all the games split up. And I personally don't like it. I there's been a lot of talk about it. I don't know how all of you feel about it. I don't have a huge problem with, you know, whether it's day or night games. I like just for the nostalgia of it and it being, you know, going on with the phrase opening day, for it to be a day game. Let's just go ahead and get started on the season. However, it does actually suit the viewer, the fan, better for games to be at night. You don't have to worry about missing opening day. And that was something for me, I remember in high school. This is a fun memory I always have, but it was a hurdle we had to clear. Was my mom would check me out of school early so that I could go home and watch opening day baseball games. One of my all-time favorite memories was, and this is pertinent to today, I don't know if you saw the news, Jason Hayward, former Brave Cardinal Cub, several different teams played for the Padres. Uh, he retired today, announced his retirement after 16 years in the MLB. I cannot believe it's been 16 years since Jason Hayward made his debut. But one of my all-time favorite baseball memories, I had just really started to get back into baseball in the last year or so and had signed up for MLB X Trainings on Direct TV at the time. And so I was going to be able to watch every game of the season instead of just, you know, having to catch them here and there or check in radio or game cast. So I was extremely excited for Jason Hayward's debut. And I got checked out of school early. I'm home watching it. My both my parents are at work. And Jason Hayward comes up and his first at bat hits a home run off Carlos Zombrono. The great call of the home run from Chip Carey. And the Braves go on to score 14 runs and win that game by a massive margin and have a really, really good season that year. And so that was something I was calling my parents. He just hit a home run, you know, on his very first at bat. It was incredible. And what people forget is Jason Hayward also hit a home run in his first at bat the next season on opening day. So that was just a really good memory for me. Opening day always has that excitement. You don't, you don't know what's going to happen. And so last year for the Braves, it was a disaster. The first seven games pretty much solidified how the season was going to go. 0-7 to start the season, and no team had ever started the season that poorly and made the playoffs. The Braves weren't able to make the playoffs either. They that was a sign of things to come. Just riddled with injuries. So we'll get into the Braves more here in just a second, but opening day in general. So I don't really like the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday thing. Personally, I don't really even like Thursday, Friday. I want everybody to start on the same day. Just have opening day. And I understand why several years ago they went to the putting a space between game one and game two in case there's a rain out, you can move the game. I don't really like it. You play opening day and then you have a day off, and then you play again the day after, and and you may not have another day off for weeks. And to me, it just doesn't make sense. I don't like it. I want to the season started, let's let's get going. But I really don't like having three opening days. It doesn't, it's it, it's no longer opening day. Opening day was Wednesday that you played on Wednesday night on Netflix uh between two teams, the Yankees and the Giants. Everybody else didn't play on opening day. And as a Braves fan, we really didn't play on opening day because there was a whole day's worth of games on Thursday. So I don't like it. Uh it's it's not a huge deal, but I'd really prefer that we just went back to opening day. Now, that being said, MLB has a massive problem. This is no secret to anybody with its streaming, with its TV rights. There's just a lot going on there that is not working out for a lot of teams and a lot of fan bases. It has gotten to the point of being ridiculous how many different streaming services you would have to have to watch all your team's games. We've got Netflix is involved now, Roku, Apple, um, games are on Fox, games are on ESPN, games are on different networks. It it's just it's just absurd. And so you have a situation where I am always out of market, which is a that's a separate issue to talk about, but I'm always out of market for the Braves. So I originally did MLB extra innings with Direct TV, which was pretty expensive at the time. I don't have DirecTV anymore. Once I went to college, I got MLB TV from Major League Baseball, which at the time I was getting the student discount, which made it great. It's still not very expensive, but that's streaming from MLB. So I don't have the in-market blackout situation that fans have who are in the market, which is being rectified for the Braves this year because they are having their own streaming service because of all the issues. So we've had Fox Sports South, we had Bally, we had FanDuel. It the streaming for baseball, the TV rights, has been a nightmare. And team companies are going bankrupt left and right, teams are in different TV agreements, the different network agreements. It's it's a hodgepodge nightmare. And I'll be really glad when either all the teams have their own streaming or we're doing it all through MLB. But anyway, as an out-of-market fan, what I get frustrated by is I am in multiple other teams markets, even teams that are not any closer or maybe even farther away from me than the Braves are. So every time the Braves play a variety of teams, there's about at least three teams, that when the Braves play those teams, I can't watch the game. I'm blacked out on MLB TV. I'm paying Major League Baseball directly for the right to view all my team's games. And I can't watch it every time they play one of these teams. And so what that ends up being is I have to try to finagle away to watch the game. Well, I can pay for FUBO and I can pay for all these different streaming services. I can't really afford to be paying for full streaming services just for the right to watch a handful of Braves games during the season. So what I end up doing is I exhaust all the different avenues of free trials for things and I listen to the radio, and that's really all I can do. I and when I am able to watch it, I'm having to watch from another team's broadcast. So it's not a perfect scenario. And what I would really like is for us to get to a situation where if I'm paying MLB, let me play pay at a flat rate to watch every single game. Another aspect of this is in the playoffs. I mean, I get it, playoff baseball draws in more viewership, so there's a lot of money at stake. But nobody likes the way the playoff format is as far as TV goes. We're playing playoff games during the day while people are working, can't watch them. So the biggest games of the year we're playing when people are at work. So that's unacceptable. And then they're on these networks with, you know, you've been watching, listening with your team's announcers the entire season, and then in the games that matter most, you've got some national announcer, and nobody likes that. Nobody likes that. So what I would really like to see is hey, let me pay you MLB, since you're the league, and just let me watch the games. And I understand there's a lot of logistics that would have to be worked out with that, but why can't I just have my announcers? Why can't I have Brandon Gaudin and CJ Nikkowski call the playoff games? You know, and I know you got to work contracts out and all that, but that's really what I would prefer. And quit doing all these blackouts, quit putting it on Apple TV, quit putting it on Roku, quit putting it on Netflix. I don't want to do that. I don't want to have to have 50 different streaming services. Let me just have the MLB streaming service. So everyone's got an opinion on that and a lot of complaints. It just kind of is what it is, but it's really frustrating to me as a Braves fan. Every time Apple wants to have a game for the Braves, it doesn't matter that I'm paying the league. I can't watch the game because I don't have Apple TV, and there's no reason for me to have Apple TV other than a couple times a year that the Braves are on there. So, anyway, moving on from that, so let's talk a little bit about what's been going on this week. So I guess one of the big pieces of news, which is getting a little bit blown out of proportion, is Paul Skins. Okay, so Paul Skins had a 1.97 ERA, I believe, last year. He is now has an ERA over 60 because he didn't make it out of the first inning against the Mets, which um I haven't seen these highlights. Sounds like O'Neill Cruz had another defensive gaff, which is a habit with him. Um I've seen some not good plays from O'Neill Cruz drafted Paul Skeens. I'm in two leagues this year with the number four pick. And so the situation was obviously the projection said pick one. Soto at pick four, I didn't want to pick one Soto. I was gonna pick Paul Skeens or Tarek Skubel. Well, I picked Paul Skins, and so the very first start that he has after he's on my fantasy team, and I know that a lot of people are in this situation, he has the worst start of his career. So, you know, obviously that didn't work out well for me. But um so let me talk about the Braves a little bit. Braves start today, Friday night, against Kansas City Royals. Royals made a lot of moves in the offseason. They have some really good young players. They have Michael Garcia and um Bobby Witt Jr. are gonna be two of the best infielders in baseball. They made some moves in the offseason. They should have a lot, they should have a good year this year. So the Braves are starting Chris Sale. Chris Sale has been absolutely dynamite for the Braves since he was signed two years ago, won a Cy Young, could have easily won a Cy Young last year if it hadn't been for the free rib injury. So we're hoping that Chris Sale, as he ages, as going to continue, this dominance that he's been on. But that's not really the story for the Braves. The story for the Braves is last season was a nightmare of injuries. And anybody could have told you that they were not prepared going into the season. Anybody could have told you that. However, no one really could have foreseen just how bad it was going to be injury-wise. You had every single member of the starting rotation go down, you had people who were added to the starting rotation go down, you had position players getting hurt, you had Austin Riley was hurt, uh, Sean Murphy, it just pretty much everybody on the team at some point hurt except Matt Olson. So this year, Braves weren't really prepared. They I talked about this on one episode. Last season they didn't make the moves they needed to make, particularly pitching-wise. This season they didn't make the moves they needed to make, particularly pitching-wise. And stop me if you heard this before, uh, jerks and profars suspended for Royds. So right now we're looking like a duo of last year. We didn't make moves to sure up the starting rotation. We didn't really make very many moves for the offense, and now everyone's hurt. So jerks and profars suspended again. I don't really know what to say about that. I don't know all the details, but here's what here's my opinion on that. Jerkson Profar should be cut, and he should not play another inning of in baseball for a very long time, if ever. Because here's the situation. Jerkson Profar had far and away his best season of his career to the point of being very suspicious before he came to the Braves with his his last year at the Padres. So that's how he got his contract. Now, I don't know the details. This is speculation, but Fernando Tatis Jr. got in trouble for Royds at the Padres. Suddenly, Jerkson Profar goes there and is all close with uh Fernando Tatis Jr. And he has his best year of his career, not even close. And then the second he signs with the Braves, he's on Royds. So I this is speculation. I think he was on Royds when he was on the Padres and just didn't get caught. So does steroids with the Braves, gets suspended for half the season, can't play in the playoffs, and not going to be a problem for the Braves last year. So this year, you know, this was a situation where you needed to learn your lesson and steer clear of any substance that could even be possibly come up positive on a test. Well, he tested positive again before the season even started. So I don't know, man, but if the guy is and he lost his appeal. So if the guy has done steroids two years in a row, you just got suspended half the season, and you do it again the next year. To me, he I'm glad the Braves don't have to pay a lot of his contract now. He should have to pay every bit of that money back, in my opinion, and he should be cut and that'd be the end of it. However, we'll see how all the different appeals process plays out and everything like that. But I don't want to see Jerusalem Profart play another inning for the Braves. That's been a complete and total bust. I don't know. I don't know if he was doing steroids before or not, but I wish somebody in the Braves had been able to figure that out because I think he probably was. So, anyway, moving on from that, uh the Braves are replete with injuries again. We've got Spencer Strider is hurt again, Hurston Waldrup is on the injured list, A.J. Smith Chauver is still hurt. Um, you've got Joe Jimenez is still hurt, Hasan Kim is hurt, your free agent signing at shortstop. Uh Sean Murphy still hurt yet again. So the Braves are in a pickle right now, and they didn't they didn't do anything. You know how many ace starting pitchers they signed? None. The only guy we signed was the bullpen guy, Robert Suarez, and and made some very minor moves that aren't gonna be probably won't be extremely consequential. But what I'm getting at here is sure would have been nice to have a workhorse ace starter in your rotation like you already had two years ago in Max Fried. That was a situation I said at the time Braves didn't probably didn't have any chance of signing him because they weren't going to pony up, but they should have re-signed him. You would not pay the guy. You would not even try to pay the guy, really, and he goes and signs with the Yankees. So how did Max Fried do last year? Well, about the same that he did his entire career with the Braves. Had a 19-5 record, had a 2.86 ERA, started 32 games for the Yankees, pitched 195 innings, had 189 strikeouts. He had a phenomenal year. But that's not something that should have surprised anyone. That was his whole career, really, with the Braves. I mean, even as a young guy, 2019, he started 30 games for the Braves. ERA wasn't as good that year, but hey, and then you had several fantastic years. Max Fried has never won a Cy Young. Max Fried is that level pitcher. He has been for years. I always felt like he was a Cy Young quality pitcher. I believe he was second in Cy Young voting a few years ago. And really, you look at 2021 being one of the pivotal points to me for Max Freed. Is so he starts 28 games that year, goes 14 and 7, has a great year in what at the start of the year was really bad for the Braves. He has a 3.04 ERA that year. However, where he really came up big was the World Series. We as a fan base and the Braves as a team had been through so many heartbreaks, playoff debacles, upsets, whatever you want to call them. It had just happened over and over and over. It had become a thing that it was the Georgia sports curse that everyone just felt. You know, you had the Georgia Bulldogs, many heartbreaks, whether that be the 2012 SEZ Championship game where you're a few yards from going to the national title game, or whether it's the 2017-2018 national championship game and you lose in overtime with a backup quarterback, you know, or the heartbreaking comeback the next year in the SEC Championship game, or it's the Falcons and the Super Bowl loss, or, you know, it's the Braves and things like getting humiliated by the Cardinals at home, or having a three-game lead the year before on the Dodgers in the NLCS and losing the series. There's just so many things like that as a Georgia fan base. So we're in a situation to clinch the World Series. Max Fried is pitching very first inning. He goes to cover first base, gets his ankle stepped on. And my first thought is, oh no, you know, here we go. You know, is this gonna be this all over again? Max Fried, we already had, you know, um, we already had Charlie Morton break his leg in the World Series. Are we gonna now have Max Fried with a broken ankle or a broken leg or whatever? You know, is he gonna be out of the game? Max Fried got angry and he locked in and completely took over that game. We won the World Series. The Braves won the World Series because of Max Freed that night. The way he responded to adversity early in the game and locked in and shut Houston down, that's why we won the World Series. And we wouldn't pony up and pay the guy. Those are the types of guys you need to win. And instead, we let him walk. It didn't matter that other than the blister issues, he had been extremely reliable and had had phenomenal success. I mean, 2022, he was 2.48 ERA. 2023, 2.55 ERA, 2024, 3.25 ERA. Why are you not signing this guy? Why will you not pony up and pay this guy? So then that led the Braves to be in the situation they were in last year, and now they're in the situation they're in this year because they had a workhorse ace and they refused to pay the money and sign him. So that's where we're at. So the Braves should have signed tried to find another guy like that, which is hard to find, but they haven't because they refuse to spend enough money. So that's part of the problem. The Spencer Strider situation, uh I mean we all see the ability, but consistently injured in one way or the other, has had some very serious injuries. You know, it's not looking good for a lot of these guys going forward. And I think the Braves are in a really bad spot. The Sean Murphy trade, I probably were going to talk about this on a different show at some point when we talk about trades, but I'm just going to get into it here. The Sean Murphy trade to me was one of the worst trades in the history of baseball. I thought that immediately when they made the trade. You had a catcher in William Contreras, who was in his early 20s, a very young guy. He's already made the all-star team. Uh, he's a much better hitter already at that point in his career than Sean Murphy was. He's improving on his defense, his calling the game, and everything. And supposedly the pitchers didn't particularly like working with him at the time. Okay, well, he's young. So you should have maybe given him a little more time. Instead, you trade him and Shay Langliers. We get we had both of these guys, two of the best catchers in baseball in our system. We trade them both to get Sean Murphy. Sean Murphy has had very limited success other than about the first half of his first season with the Braves. He's been hurt most of the time he's been here. They gave him a big fat contract. So who won that trade? Not the Braves. That was a terrible move. It was a terrible move at the time. You traded a younger, better player with more upside for an older player who couldn't hit as well because he might call a game better. Well, he was older. Of course he's going to call the game better at that point in his career. So that's been a complete and utter bust. The good news is the Braves got Drake Baldwin. Drake Baldwin, to me, was already a better catcher than Sean Murphy last year. He's one of the better catchers in baseball already, it looks like one rookie of the year. We have a lot to look forward to with him if he can stay healthy, but he can't catch every single day. We don't want to do that. So it would be nice if Sean Murphy got healthy. He can't do anything about that. I'm not criticizing him for being injured. I'm criticizing the Braves for the decision. So the Braves are in a bind, and you make the offseason move with Hawks on Kim, and then he slips on ice and falls. And, you know, we've had some of these situations in the past. Mike Siroca had a very promising career, kind of, I don't want to say derailed because he's still in the majors, but he looked like he was going to be an ace, and that really hasn't happened because of so many serious injuries with the Braves. You've had Ronald Acuna Jr. with the ACL tears. You've had Austin Riley with some of his injuries. Ozzie Albys has had several injuries. Uh it's just seems to be a situation where the Braves are struggling to stay healthy. This is part of why you have to go out and spend money. The Dodgers had a lot of injuries last year. The Dodgers had a ton of injuries in their rotation. Well, guess what? It didn't matter. They spent so much money, they just had more guys to go in there. And the Braves are not, the Dodgers are not going to be able to spend like the Dodgers. And I've talked about in other shows. I think baseball needs a salary cap. I think baseball needs a salary floor to fix these issues and make everything more competitive. However, the Braves have got to spend more money. That's the long story short. So my expectations for the season, I don't know. I feel like now are not that high. I'm still hopeful. I'm still hopeful that we're going to rebound. The talent is on the team to go deep into the playoffs. There's no doubt about that. And if we can get everybody healthy and stay healthy, Spencer Schwellenbach, I didn't say Spencer Schwellenbach, you know, that's a huge win. He looked like he was going to be a top-line starter. He really already was. And now he's had serious injury problems. So if we can get everybody healthy, the team can win. The team can do very well. But that's looking like it might not happen. I don't know what to expect. I'm hoping, you know, we rebound this year. What do you expect with the managerial change, staff change? I am hopeful, I am hopeful the Braves are going to be at least a wild card team, but I don't know. I don't know. You didn't really do much of anything different from last year. Why do you expect to get a much different result, particularly when the injury situation is what it is? So we're going to see, but right now it's a little bit hard to be super optimistic. But hey, it's it's opening day and anybody can win right now. Anybody can be hopeful. So I'm going to hope that the Braves are going to make the playoffs this year. I don't I would be surprised if the Braves won the World Series unless every single player on the team basically got healthy and played at the level they played pre-injury. I think looking at the wide scope of baseball, this is the Dodgers World Series. I mean, uh anything can happen, but the world the Dodgers are far and away the favorite to win the World Series, and I don't think it should even be close. They had the team that they had last year and they improved upon that team in the offseason. So as long as they can just keep buying whoever the best players in the league are, uh how are you going to stop that? Uh the Blue Jays obviously are another favorite. Went to the World Series last year, spent some money in the offseason. So I would say the Blue Jays are one of the favorites. You've got other teams that spend a lot of money or have been good. Teams like the Phillies, the Mets, the Yankees. Those are teams that could make a run. You've got other teams that maybe don't quite spend as much, but have had have good players. You know, we've got teams like the Mariners or whatever. So we'll see. The Oriol have spent some money and we'll see how they do. I don't think the Orioles are going to win the World Series, but who knows? So we'll see how the season plays out. Now I'm going to get into a little bit of fantasy baseball before I close out the show. Um so I'll check in on my teams. First, it depends on where you're playing. Are you playing ESPN? You're playing Yahoo! Are you playing a rotisserie league? Are you playing a points league? A head-to-head league. I'm just going to talk about ESPN, points league, head-to-head league a little bit, and maybe give you some advice. You can join. I last year I joined my fantasy leagues in I think May. You can join late in the season. So you don't have to have had a draft done already. Um so I did a head-to-head league and a points league this year in ESPN. So last year I just did points leagues. I did win one of those leagues, which was probably the first time I've ever won a fantasy league. And I kind of had a cheat code because I drafted Shohei Otani. Now, he was not able to pitch near as much last year as we're hoping he's going to be able to pitch this year, but it was still Shohei Otani. But what I find with MLB fantasy is a lot does depend on your draft, and if those guys can stay healthy and pan out. I mean, injuries are huge in fantasy baseball, and guys get hurt in this long season, especially pitchers. But to me, one of the key things with fantasy baseball is you have to stay on it. You have to look about every day. You have to make your roster changes and your uh lineup. I've seen a lot of guys don't bother really to make a lot of lineup changes. That's not going to work. Like you're not going to win like that. You have to go in, you know, it doesn't take a lot of time. Just a couple minutes a day, go in, check who's playing, check who's injured, check who's off that day. Sometimes a team is not playing that day, or a guy just gets a day off. You need to make that change if you're able to. Uh, if you're in a points league, I found last year pitching doesn't get enough points. Not that it's not important. Generally speaking, in a points league, it seemed like to me pitchers are not valued as they should, in my opinion. A guy can go six innings and give up two runs and, you know, barely get any points, and then he only starts once a week. So I don't feel like having a good quality start where you don't give up very many runs is incentivized enough in fantasy. I feel like there's, you know, a guy's got to basically go eight innings and have 12 strikeouts to really get very many points. So I think that's a little bit of a problem, and it limits what pitchers are able to bring to your team, especially if you're talking starting pitchers who are only pitching every five days. Relief pitchers, I don't really see a lot of relief pitchers getting a lot of points. They just don't. Some of the guys do, you if you've got one of the best closers in baseball and he's racking up 60 saves this season, okay, yeah, he's probably worth having on your roster. But generally speaking, relief pitchers aren't bringing in a ton of points. So in your draft, you probably want to prioritize hitters a little bit. But I find with fantasy baseball, and I'm definitely no expert on this, you kind of just have to draft what's available. You don't, depending on how many teams are in your league, you don't know who's going to be there. The clock is moving really quickly. And this kind of got me, and and we'll I'll go over my team and how the drafts went, but uh this is a problem for me. Sometimes I end up getting a little bit frazzled or whatever because you don't know who's going to be there. You know, you might not pick for 18 picks or something, and the clock is moving really quick, and you're trying to siphon through every player in Major League Baseball. That can get kind of difficult. If you want to take the time to kind of map things out beforehand, that can help, but it could take a lot of time and it you also have no idea who people are going to draft at. For example, in one league, I was planning on drafting Matt Olsen and I was going to draft him uh a little bit earlier than what he was projected to go, but somebody picked him, you know, at least 20 to 40 picks earlier than what he was projected to go. And so he wasn't there when I was going to pick. So it's kind of hard to map out and plan what you're going to do. In a head-to-head league, to me, pitching is a lot more valuable in a way than it is in a points league because only so many pitchers are going to get a lot of points. However, in a head-to-head league where every category matters, you need those innings pitched. You need the wins, you need the saves. And that really raises the importance also of some relief pitchers. However, you know, you're probably still more looking at hitters who are playing every day. So with all that being said, I'm gonna share my screen and we'll we'll look at the two uh fantasy leagues that I'm in. All right. So got Drake Baldwin at catcher. That worked out for me. Now, there's a one of the projections had him in the 20s. I am not I did not draft Drake Baldwin in either league in the 20s. I got him in both leagues. That's too high. That's reaching on him. So don't feel like you need to draft him where the projection says. I picked Nick Kurtz. I don't know, man. We'll see if that insane rookie year carries over. Typically, I'm not a huge fan of sophomores, second year guys. Guys usually take a step back in their sophomore season. So I'm not sure how that's gonna work out. But with the way his season went last year, I thought it was worth picking him. He is a can't drop guy. Um, Xavier Edwards, second base shortstop. I don't know, man. I was in need of a second baseman, and there were not very many good second basemen. Second basemen hardly ever get you very many points unless you've got a guy like Catel Marte. I had him last year, I've got him in my other league. So this is my head-to-head league. Now you're gonna notice if you look at these rosters, I kind of drafted a little bit in reverse of what I really meant to do. Um head-to-head league, I meant to prioritize pitching a little bit more, and in the points league, I meant to prioritize hitters a little bit more. But the way the draft just fell and who was there when I was picking, uh, it almost got reversed. My points league, I kind of have a better pitching staff, and in my head-to-head league, I kind of have better hitters. But so Xavier Edwards at second base, he can play shortstop. I'm not really sure how he's gonna work out. He's a low power guy, uh, relatively good average last year. He's a young player, might get some steals for you. I'm kind of just gonna watch and see with him. And if he doesn't do real well, I'm gonna drop him. There are guys you don't want to drop because somebody will snatch him up, but generally speaking, if you have an average, you know, not a huge point skitter, it's okay to make a lot of changes. I can't tell you how many roster changes I made in my league last year. It was a lot. You know, I was making roster changes nearly every day, probably. And so you're going to make some roster changes. That's okay. So right now I'm just kind of trying to feel out how my roster's gonna work out and who's gonna be playing well. Who's there's gonna be somebody in the free agency that you didn't expect, or you might not even know who they are who you're going to play well. So just keep an eye on it, just watch it. And um, what's really important is just get to the playoffs and be playing well at the playoffs. So it's okay if early in the league you're just kind of feeling things out. At third base, I got Michael Garcia. I had him in my league last year. He had a really good year. He's a young guy. I'm not sure how the season will go. I don't expect him to have quite as good a year, maybe, but uh I went ahead and took him. Geraldo Perdomo. I took Geraldo Perdomo, I believe, in the 80s in my league last year. He was the third highest points getter in the entire league last year. And so he was huge for me. He played basically every day. He had, I think, over 500 fantasy points. So he is a low-risk, high value guy that you can get a little bit later in the draft. I would say probably not maybe as late as last year, because people are going to be watching for this. I don't anticipate Perdomo being the third highest points kidder this year. I don't think that's gonna happen again. However, I definitely think he's worth getting in the shortstop market. So I picked Perdomo. James Wood was almost a little bit of a panic pick when I just needed to pick somebody. Um, he's another very young guy, had an extremely good year on a not a very good team last year, a lot of power. So I picked him. Uh, we'll see how that works out. Cody Bellinger, uh, also in the outfield. Now, here's a guy, Chris Collinsworth. Dalen, I don't even know how to pronounce his name. This is what I'm talking about. This is a guy I don't know. I didn't know previously. Dalen Lily, Lil, I don't know. He had been looking hot in spring training. I needed an outfielder kind of, so I went and picked him up and I'm just gonna see how it works out. Utility obviously got Shohei Otani. He's gonna be staying in the utility DH spot every day that they play, except for when he's pitching. And you have that's with Shohei, you kind of have to watch out and see when they're gonna pitch him. It's it's not always just like, oh, every fifth day he's pitching. You got to really watch out and see when he's pitching and move him into the into uh a pitcher role rather than having him as the hitter role and then remember to switch him back. I took Jacob Wilson really late just because of the year he had last year, really high average, a lot of hits. I just wanted to see how that works out. Uh Ernie Clements, a guy I picked up in free agency. He had a good year last year. I had him on one of my teams last year, and he was a big contributor. I picked him up because he can play third base, second base, and shortstop. And I'm just kind of feeling out my middle infield right now and figuring out what I'm gonna do. And I like having guys who can play a lot of different positions. Okay, with the Jackson Churio injury, again, this was a little bit of a panic pick, but Jackson Churio is a very young guy who had a very good year last year. He's projected to have an extremely good year for the Brewers this year. So I picked him. Problem was he's now on the injury list for 10 days. So I went and picked up Sal Freelick. Uh, I assume he's going to be picking up a lot of the slack in the outfield for Jackson Churio. He had a pretty good day, uh, opening day. Pitching Max Fried. Hey Braves, Max Fried. Uh David Bednar, he I did not have a relief pitcher. He was available several rounds in. I decided to draft him. It helps to have one of the more elite closers. He had a really good world baseball classic, had a good year last year, so I went with him. Uh Nolan McLean, young guy. I had picked him up in free agency last year, and he was very helpful for me. He had a really good ERA, pitched in the World Baseball Classic this year. I decided I would pick him. Drew Rasmussen, he had a quietly good year last year. He was a guy who in my league was frequently being dropped, picked up, that sort of thing. Uh, I believe last year he was available as a starting pitcher or relief pitcher spot this year, uh, just a starting pitcher. Trevor Rogers, I don't know why everybody's sleeping on Trevor Rogers. Nobody's talking about him. You can get him really late in the draft. Last year, I picked up Trevor Rogers in free agency. I believe he was coming off injury. Dude had a sub-2 ERA over several starts, completely dominant. Gets you a lot of fantasy points. So then he pitched in the World Baseball Classic, pitched very well. He was the opening day starter for the Orioles this year. I don't know. Nobody's talking about him very late in the draft. Nobody seemed to be even trying to draft him in either one of my leagues. So I drafted Trevor Rogers. I had my eye on him going into the draft. Uh his opening day start, he went seven innings, three hits, no earned runs, five strikeouts, got the win. I don't know what else you want from the guy. I mean, he's not a high strikeout guy, but I what you're what I'm concerned about with pitchers is I don't want some guy having a bad day where he gave up five, six runs and lost me 15 or 20 fantasy points, which is what you have to watch with pitchers. Pitchers are very prone to losing you fantasy points. I don't want a guy like that. I don't want a guy who's gonna get a high ERA. So if he has a few less strikeouts, he has a few less strikeouts. I don't care. So uh I would say, hey, if you're looking for a pitcher, look for Trevor Rogers. Oh, I've already got Nick Lodolo on the I. Manage your I. list when a guy goes gets hurt, that's a real bummer. But guess what? That means you can go pick somebody else up and you can just hold that guy on your I. list now you you're gonna have to make a decision when the guy comes back off the injured list and you'll have to drop somebody, but definitely manage your IL list. And currently in my head-to-head league, I'm way up uh on my opponent. Of course, we're only a few days in. Now let me switch to my other team. These are not names that I gave the teams, it just generates that. So in my points league, which again, kind of backwards of how I intended it to go. So Drake Baldwin again, Josh Naylor. I am not saying draft Josh Naylor at first base. That's just kind of what I was left with. Uh, I took Catel Martin. Pretty high because the second base market is so weak that if you have a guy who can be a really high point skitter, I know he is getting a little bit older, he's had some injuries, but he had a really good year for me last year. If you can find a second base guy who's going to get a lot of points, I would take him. So got a guy coming over from Japan, Okamoto. He got he is going to be the starting third baseman for Toronto to start the season. And he had a really good spring. I took him very late in the draft. I had not gotten a third baseman, needed a third baseman. I took him. We'll see how it goes. Again, Geraldo Perdomo at shortstop. I took Julio Rodriguez pretty, really high in the draft. Um, I don't know. I don't know if that was the right pick or not, but he had a very good year last year, kind of rebounded from not as good a sophomore campaign. I expect him to be really good this year. Rosarina was a guy fairly late in the draft, high upside, you know, kind of spotty, what we'll get there. Michael Harris the second. Michael Harris the second, factoid for you, is probably my favorite player in all of Major League Baseball. I love Michael Harris. He has not been a very good fantasy option. After an extremely promising rookie campaign, he just really has struggled offensively while being a fantastic defensive player. I just I needed an outfielder, and it was late in the draft, and I took him. We'll see if he rebounds this year. So here's a pickup I made, or a couple pickups I made uh over the last couple days. JJ Weatherholt for St. Louis. He's going to be starting in the middle infield. He had a very good day, opening day. So I've got him 40% of leagues have him picked up. Uh again, Dalen for Washington, and then Murakami. I mentioned Murakami, I believe, um, on one of the podcasts early in the offseason. The big get for the White Sox from Japan. He had a good day, opening day, and he had a good spring training. So I'm taking a flyer on him. I picked him up. This is not at all how I'm going to leave this roster. Uh, but this is what I wanted to try out. You you never really know for sure how that's going to translate from Japan to the United States. I'm definitely willing to take a chance on it. So here's Paul Skeins. Okay. So I had a choice to make, and I chose to pick Paul Skeens with the fourth pick, and he went 0.2 innings, five earned runs. I don't expect that to be an ongoing thing. I think he will rebound from that. He pitched very well in the World Baseball Classic. He's been good every start of his career, but he lost me 15 fantasy points. And so I have there's a very strong chance I'm going to lose this week. Uh, Chris Sale, dude, Chris Sale is a points machine. High innings pitched, uh, low ERA, high strikeouts, fairly high probability of a win. If Chris Sale is healthy, he racks up the fantasy points big time. So if you're looking for somebody, Chris Sale, Joe Ryan had a good start opening day, uh, Sonny Gray for Boston, Gary Perez. Now, here's one that I made a mistake on, and I believe it was this league. I meant to get Edward Cabrera, who is now on the Cubs, went from the Marlins. He was available in free agency, and I was going to pick him. I didn't want to drop one of my hitters, so I was trying to decide what I was going to do. By the next day, somebody had picked him up. And I have a feeling if he is the year that he had last year, he's probably not going to be back in free agency very much. So there's one. If you see a guy you really want to pick up, you might need to just go ahead and pick him up because somebody might grab him. Uh, I drafted Matthew Boyd. He had a good year last year. He did not have a good opening day at all, gave up six earned runs, did have seven strikeouts. He lost me three fantasy points. And again, Trevor Rogers. I'm Trevor Rogers cheerleader. Pick Trevor Rogers. Okay. Uh Cade Horton was a guy. He had a good year last year, and nobody's paying any attention to him. Um, nobody's really drafting him or projecting him very high in the draft whatsoever. So he was a guy I got really late in the draft. We'll see how that goes. I I'm not even really even sure what's going on with him, but thought it was worth a flyer on. So I'm down right now. I'm a fantasy league in this uh in this matchup. We'll see how that goes. So that's kind of just um where I'm at with fantasy league. I'll check in every now and then with you on that, or some players that I think you should pick up. So my pitch for today, you know, when I'm doing this, I'll say, here's a guy I think you should pick up. Draft Trevor Rogers. Uh don't worry about the high strikeouts so much. I would say watch out for this guy that you can get him really late in the draft. So uh anyway, there's my fantasy league. If you have any questions or comments or anything you want to say about fantasy baseball or opening day or anything, let me know. Oh, I'm excited for opening day today. Go, Braves. Um, tomahawk chop. So let's see how it goes. I hope your team has a good year as long as they're not playing the Braves. And so happy baseball is back every day. No more. What am I going to do tonight? What am I going to watch? No, I'm watching the Braves. So I'm very excited for that. Love the Braves crew. So enjoy baseball season.