How does Yu Darvish's second-half affect his 2020 fantasy stock?

In the Yahoo Fantasy baseball podcast, Scott Pianowski is joined by Rotowire's Scott Jenstad to discuss the Cubs pitcher's draft stock ahead of the 2020 season

Video Transcript

[ROCK MUSIC]

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Man, Yu Darvish sure looked like a different guy in the second half of the season. You have to pay up for him, but he has landed on the target list for Scott Jenstad.

SCOTT JENSTAD: Yeah. I just think that second half was so out of this world. It was so fun to watch. I mean, you look at that game log down the stretch, and he's striking out 10 guys every game. And I think he just finally figured it out.

And I don't know if he had a weird effect from that World Series. I mean, he just wasn't the same guy for a while and maybe just needed some confidence back. But in that range, he's kind of a third-rounder now. He has moved up since early when I started doing some research and doing draft and stuff.

A couple of those we had-- we had the Blake Snell injury. We had the Syndergaard injury. You had a lot of guys that did get hurt and pushed up some of those second-tier pitchers.

I just think, on the Cubs, he's gonna get a lot of run support, a lot of strikeouts. I love everything that we saw from Darvish. And the key for me in the second half was just limiting the walks. The walks in the first half were such a huge issue.

Once he got that under control, he kind of went back to that guy that we remembered from 2016, 2014, 2017-- the years before and after the Tommy John. I just think that as long as those walks stay down-- he upped the strikeout rate. I think he's a guy that can be your number one, without being a number one price.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: But I also think he's finally learning. This is a guy who came in with, I think, too many pitches, too big of an arsenal, too big of a repertoire.

SCOTT JENSTAD: Yeah, that's true.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: And I think he's finally learned how to trim that down to something more manageable. And I always felt that the best pitchers are usually smart guys. And Darvish has been very open about embracing new technology and new data. And it sure seemed like it was clicking for him in the second half. You have to pay for him, but I think he's gonna be a fun party to have.

SCOTT JENSTAD: I do too.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: And I think he's gonna be somebody I'm gonna want to-- I may end up making a FOMO pick on Darvish, 'cause I want to be invested when he pitches, and settle in and watch him do his stuff.