Happy Thursday, everyone! Dan Schneier here again and the countdown continues until we can lock in a start date for the 2022 baseball season, but we're just over a month away from when Fantasy Baseball drafts start to really kick off. And the good news is that at least both sides are trying to figure something out. Representatives from MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association completed a two-hour meeting last Monday in Manhattan -- in person. This was the first time the two sides even met in person since December. 

The rest of the way will be a cat-and-mouse game with both sides conceding on one thing or another and it's not all that exciting until we get to the end so instead, let's use this time to focus on Fantasy Baseball draft preparation. Starting today, we're going to try and include a mock draft recap, key takeaways, results, etc in every single one of these newsletters at least until the MLB hot stove warms back up. It's never too early to mock and we hope that in breaking them down, you'll get some insight into where players are being selected and who you may want to prioritize as keepers.

Below, we'll break down a few different kinds of mocks. The first and main focus of today's newsletter will be the Roto scoring mock draft Chris Towers and Scott White participated in. There's a lot to talk about there. We'll then dive into some fun stats that could impact where and when you draft players in your coming drafts from Scott's 56 amazing stats piece that is live on the site! But first, there are some congratulations in order...

Of course, as always, you can follow to make sure you get the latest episodes of Fantasy Baseball Today right when they drop on Apple and Spotify. 

David Ortiz is the lone player who will be entering the Hall of Fame after he accrued 77.9% of the vote as a first ballot Hall of Famer. While we're here to celebrate the incredible news for Papi, the news came with controversy as Baseball Twitter was sent in a flurry when they found out Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling, and Sammy Sosa all did not receive the required 75% of the vote in order to make it in.

As Frank said it best on the podcast, I almost want to cut it off there -- no further commentary -- why give these "writers" the attention they certainly don't deserve. 

Frank did an excellent job embodying the way I feel about the whole Bonds not getting in situation and here's how he described it: "Bonds is one of the greatest hitters we've ever seen and even if you had cut off his career ended before he played for the Giants he would be a Hall of Famer. The MLB turned a blind eye to steroid use in order to build the popularity of the game and now those same players are the ones being penalized. It's frustrating. You can't tell the story of baseball without these players. MLB just continues to shoot themselves in the foot time and time again, unless, of course, this is the publicity they want.

The settings: Standard Roto lineup: 2 catchers, corner infield, middle infield, five outfielders, nine pitcher spots. Chris picked from the No. 11 hole and Scott was on the wrap at No. 12 overall.

• There is enough starting pitching in the middle rounds that you can feel pretty good about drafting, so Chris went hitter heavy early on and grabbed a lot of his guys. This year, there is enough starting pitching in the middle rounds that you can feel decent about waiting.
• Justin Turner fell to No. 230 overall in the draft. Did people just forget about him? That's certainly what Scott said in the chat after making the mistake of assuming he had already been drafted since he was ranked so much higher in his tiers.
• You can get some really good hitters late. Chris' last two hitters: Turner and Eduardo Escobar. This leads him to believe he'll profit from being a tiny bit more aggressive early with starting pitching in his next draft.
• Starting catchers Mitch Garver and Joey Barton in Rounds 18 and 19 were both value plays and a great way to build out the catcher position in a league where you need to start two of them. 
• Chris started his draft by selecting five hitters in his first six picks. His approach was to find very good hitters who mostly won't kill him in batting average and could grab you double-digit steals (the exception of course being his selection of Matt Olson).
• Chris finished with just one SP selected in his first sick picks and here's what his staff ends up looking like: Robbie Ray, Musgrove, Kershaw, then Tyler Mahle, Sean Manaea, Anthony DeSclafani, Noah Syndergaard, Alex Cobb, Aaron Civale
• Chris did not draft closers with the strategy of -- it's January and a lot will change. There is so much volatility there and we're bad at predicting who will have saves. It's in a lot of ways like running backs in Fantasy Football. There's a handful we know will be the closer and a lot more we know have very little job security. So Chris made the call -- you can punt saves in the draft and still compete in the category. The strategy is to then grind the waiver wire and find saves as they come. This was a strategy Scott had to use last year in a lot of leagues and his review: "It didn't work in the 15-team leagues, but in anything shallower, it's probably the way to go."
• Jo Adell is going to be on every roster Chris has -- and he got him in this one.
• Chris feels like bounceback candidate Anthony Rendon (who he drafted outside of the top-100 overall) could end up his bets value pick.
• Last year we saw a lot of pocket aces strategy -- two starting pitchers with your first two picks. This year, it feels like we'll see more of a "hero-SP" type strategy with one high-end selection used on a SP to anchor your staff.

• Scott is using a new strategy this year -- the "zero-SB" strategy. But he wants you to know it's no the same as punting on stolen bases. Think of it like the zero-RB strategy in Fantasy Football. His goal is not to finish last in steals, but he's saying that it doesn't take much to compete in that category. Instead of overemphasizing them and getting more than you need, like he did last year, he's avoiding prioritizing them early. Remember -- there is no correlation between stolen bases and any other counting stats. Why not just draft a few players who grab a handful of steals and finish in the middle of the pack?
• Scott tested out his zero-SB strategy in this mock draft at the Round 1/2 turn here by going with Mike Trout and Freddie Freeman despite Kyle Tucker being on the board. Using 2021 stats, Scott's final team would have finished fifth overall in stolen bases despite drafting just two players who stole more than 20 bases last year and not much else. Per Frank's projections (using Steamer), both Chris and Scott's teams are projected to finish with 80 steals.
• Scott drafted a lot of power with his first five picks including: Freeman, Trout, Austin Riley and Pete Alonso with four of Scott's first five picks. With the home runs come runs and RBI and in this scenario both Trout and Freeman can help make up for what's lacking in batting average.
• Mr. Starting Pitcher always and early in 2021 Fantasy Baseball drafts ended up with the following in this one: Sandy Alcantara (Round 3), Charlie Morton and Frankie Montas (Round 6-7 turn) Framber Valdez (Round 14), Adam Wainwright (Round 15), Zack Greinke (Round 22)

• Round 1: Based on both ADP and the FFT team's consensus rankings, the Top-5 seems to be shaking out as Fernando Tatis Jr., Vlad Guerrero Jr., Treat Turner, Juan Soto and Jose Ramirez-- in no particular order.
• Round 1: Ronald Acuna Jr. went off the board in Round 1 at No. 6 overall and after watching that video of him high-stepping on the speed ladder...it's pretty encouraging, right? We still need to see lateral movement (side to side, turning on the basepaths, etc) but all signs seem to be pointing in the right direction and it seems like Acuna will be a mainstay in the first round of mock drafts.
• Round 2: After just one starting pitcher came off the board in Round 1, there were seven selected in Round 2 including six in a row -- Corbin Burnes, Walker Buehler, Max Scherzer, Zach Wheeler, Shane Bieber and Jacob DeGrom.
• Round 3: Francisco Lindor came off the board in the middle of Round 3 -- where is the discount? The whole idea of drafting Lindor this year is to buy back in on the discount and the middle of Round 3 isn't much of a discount. Trevor Story came off the board in Round 5.
• Round 4: Liam Hendriks went at No. 42 overall as the No. 1 closer off the board ahead of a potential 220-strikeout guy in Aaron Nola. Both Scott and Chris weren't on board with this. Similar to steals, you just don't need all that many saves. Right around 45 saves has been around the midrange over the last couple of years. 

Scott dropped his annual stats-based piece that seems to always make me a lot higher and lower on certain players than I ever thought I would be before reading it. You can find that entire piece here. But these are some of the stats that really wowed me the most:

• Yasmani Grandal hit .188 before succumbing to knee surgery in early July. He returned on Aug. 27 and hit .337 with nine home runs, a .481 on-base percentage and a 1.154 OPS the rest of the way, walking well more (27) than he struck out (18). He ended up being the highest-scoring catcher on a per-game basis in points leagues, bettering even the aforementioned Perez.
• A career .296 hitter in the minors,  Royals shortstop Nicky Lopez's career has unfolded much the same as Varsho's. In his first 217 games as a major-leaguer, including his first 58 last year, he hit .227. In his latest 93, he hit .334, bringing his final 2021 mark to .300. Only two other players hit .300 or better with 20 or more steals last year:  Trea Turner and Starling Marte.
• True, contact isn't everything, but it's what all-everything prospect Wander Franco  did better than anything else as a 20-year-old rookie. He struck out nine times in his final 39 games, bringing his overall rate to 12 percent. Juan Soto was similarly lauded for his plate discipline as a rookie, but even he struck out at a 20 percent rate.
• Free agent Nick Castellanos  could have a lot riding on his decision where to sign. He hit .359 with 23 homers and an 1.109 OPS at hitter-friendly Great American Ball Park last year and .260 with 11 homers and a .772 OPS everywhere else.
• The list of players to hit 20 home runs and steal 20 bases while walking at a 10 percent clip is a short one. It includes Fernando Tatis, Jose Ramirez, Shohei Ohtani and ...  Robbie Grossman.