Rates & Barrels - 2022 Late-Round Starting Pitchers

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

Eno and DVR wrap-up their Starting Pitcher series by taking a look at several late-round and endgame targets from young risers such as Casey Mize and Luis Patiño, to ultra deep league considerations like Griffin Jax and Corbin Martin.  Rundown Casey Mize's Puzzling 2021 Pitch Mix Luis Patiño: Time for the Breakout? A Case for Corey Kluber Taijuan Walker's Quiet Return to Fantasy Relevance Cristian Javier's Role Uncertainty DVR Makes Another Plea for Adbert Alzolay Luis Gil & Miguel Yajure Cheap SPs in KC Cincy Starting Pitcher Depth Eno's Ultra Deep League Sleepers Rookie Pitcher Stashes? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first six months: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Wednesday, February 23rd. We are back after a brief holiday, President's Day, a holiday, just a vacation day for me, actually, much needed. So on this episode, we are going to dig into late starting pitchers. You might call them starting pitcher sleepers. You might call them undervalued pitchers. You might call them cheap pitchers or pitchers with upside. Yes, the word that I once banned on this show is fully back into our vocabulary,

so we have that going for us, which is nice. But yeah, late pitching is the focus on this episode. There is absolutely no way we will talk about every possible late pitcher over the course of one podcast, so of course you're free to ask questions as you always are if there are pitchers we don't talk about today that you are curious about. We begin today with a pitcher that is not in this group necessarily, but we didn't talk about him on the last episode, and that is Casey Mize. Question comes from Jeff who wants to know, Casey Mize obviously had his pitch count capped last year, and it seemed he was more focused on pitching to contact or getting the most innings per start length out of his pitch count he seems to be much lower rated amongst fantasy analyst community and as a result as a result of his low strikeout rates despite seeming to have

good control and location of many of his pitches is there any sense that without a strict pitch count or innings limit in place that he will have more quality starts and there's potential for his strikeout rate to tick up it seems like an ideal post-hype sleeper given that he will have more quality starts and there's potential for his strikeout rate to tick up it seems like an ideal post-hype sleeper given that he was a number one overall pick i mean this is a guy that was placed kind of in the back of the 250 to 300 range and we kind of went rapid fire at the end of the last episode what do you make of casey maia as you know because for me i'm just frustrated he doesn't throw a split or more that was his best pitch coming out of college, and it's not the pitch that he goes to the most often out of

his secondaries. Nick Pollock over at Pitcher List has a very strident feeling about splitters, that they are tough to command. They are a tough secondary pitch and that they may lead to injury because of the way they stress your flexor tendon. I would say that, you know, I tried to look into this, the injury part in particular, and I couldn't necessarily nail that down with any luck in terms of numbers of what's actually happened. But in terms of commanding the pitch, I could see it. I mean, for the most part, you're letting that kind of slip out uh you're uh not usually commanding it in the same way also if you think about it you're most of us are front or these

these fingers are dominant you know and and uh even with a change up you can find ways to involve these two dominant fingers your pointer finger and your your middle finger. But the splitter really kind of takes those fingers out of it and is producing movement that way. But in terms of commanding the pitch, I think it's a little bit tough. Stuff Plus loves his split finger and thinks he should throw it the most. But the real thing that I'm really impressed about with with mys and i just wonder how much is left in it is that uh he improved his breaking balls to the point that they are plus pitches now or at least above average by stuff plus um he and so the

knuckle curve and slider are good um and he improved the foresamer as hard as it is to believe because he throws pretty hard. Both of his fastballs rate below 90 on Stuff Plus. So I wonder if he's just a little bit stuck in between when it comes to, you know, fastball movement. And while I think that what he's done so far is like a really good example of how, you know, major league pitching coaching can take a, you know, pitcher and make him better.

I wonder how much is left because the four seam still has about an inch less ride than you want from an average four seam. And the sinker is pretty good. It actually, in the major league terms, is kind of average. 93.5 miles an hour, average. Nine inches of arm side run, average. Four and a half inches vertical movement by Brooks, the way that Brooks has it, pretty close to average. So Mize's fastball is paradoxical,

but it's worse than average because it's average if that makes sense i think it does i think the reason i would have some optimism about the k rate getting better is that he can still make a lot of changes to the mix of the pitches that he's throwing he could throw his slider a little more throw the splitter more throw the curveball more i don't think the curveball is necessarily a bad pitch, and I think that just gives him a lot of paths to improve in that regard. We already saw pretty good results,

a.371 ERA and a.114 whip, over 30 starts, 150 innings last season. The park is good. The team's getting better. The opponents are good. It's good to be in that division in terms of facing opponents. I see quite a bit to like. I think think where he goes it makes a lot of sense he doesn't have to get a lot better for you to be

happy with him around that pick 275 range so if you gave me three or four from that group instead of two that we talked about in the last episode i think he'd be in the third or fourth position for me i do see enough there to believe that he can get a little better. And I think it also, I don't know if this question has been answered by Cody Stavenhagen or anybody else on the Tigers beat. I wonder if there was anything about the Tigers approach with Mize last year that was, hey, we know that splitter's really good.

Let's make everything else better. And then when we're trying to win, you can go to that splitter more and you'll have a more complete arsenal maybe it was more of a a long game sort of maneuver on their part or not even it may not even be have been said out loud like that it might just be like hey let's focus on your slider and your knuckle and your knuckle curve let's let's focus on your breaking balls and get them you know plus grades you know and so he's just not thinking about the splitter as much. He's not throwing it as much.

And it's not necessarily as cynical as you have it. Is it that bad? There's a little cynicism poked through there. Ah, well, yeah, up and down. When we're trying to be good. We're trying, definitely trying. But the guy that I like, as we start thinking about late pitching,

thanks a lot for that question, Jeff. There is a sleeper that I've chased for a couple of years. Sleeper just in a very basic sense. People have known who this guy is for a while now. I think this could finally be the year that Luis Patino has everything fall into place. Injuries slowed him down a little bit last year. He's right at that pick 300 mark. You know, he's still really young, still just 22 years old. Like all the race pitchers, we talked about how much we like Boz and McClanahan on previous episodes. I like Patino almost as much as those guys. And he goes a lot later. And I don't think he's necessarily immune to the innings concerns that we

have for the other Rays pitchers. But if you're a little bit hesitant to chase Boz and McClanahan where they go, I think you can still get exposure to the Rays process and a guy that could get a lot better with Patino at a very fair price. I think that the Rays rotation will work this way because it worked this way in the past, The Rays rotation will work this way because it worked this way in the past, which is they'll open the season with Corey Kluber in the rotation. Shane Boz in the minor leagues to protect his innings and maybe Josh Fleming as the fifth or Yanni Chirinos if he's recovered, and Luis Patino as a bulk sixth guy that comes in for somebody. A Patino-Yarbrough pairing would be kind of crazy, I think, as a hitter, to face Yarbrough throwing 87 from the left

and then have Patino over the top 97 from the right in the third or fourth inning. So that's a good pairing, I think, for the two of them. Eventually, though, Corey Kluber gets hurt. Drew Rasmussen has a long injury history. Those are players that you can cycle out, and then you cycle in Boz, and you give Patino a full shot. If Yarbrough is as bad as he was at times last year,

he might just give up the job. So I think that there are opportunities here. And then just lastly, I think six starters are really a great place to mine for sleepers, for potential, because they're going to get innings. People think when he's not in the starting five, he might not get innings. they're going to get innings. People think, when he's not in the starting five, he might not get innings. He's going to get innings.

Like, there's no team in baseball that won't use their sixth starter for at least 70 to 100 innings, I think. And that's where I have Patino on the depth chart, sixth. That's why I have Patino in my top 50. So I am fully on board with that pick. I'm so fully on board that I looked past him to way deeper names for my list for today.

Yeah. I mean, I was surprised before we started recording, you wanted Corey Kluber on the rundown. It makes sense because the Rays have gone to this pool before and come out of it smelling like roses. And with Kluber, it's been a little bit of a winding road for you lately. But what is it about him that you see right now that makes you think, at least on a per-inning basis,

he's going to be effective in Tampa Bay? I think I like him a little bit better in regular leagues than I do in draft and holds. And my reasoning is that I think he'll at least start the season with Tampa. And that I think he basically can do what he did last year again. I think he deserved the numbers he got last year, and I think he can do those again. So that's sort of a double-edged sword, right? I'm not saying that I think he's going to get 180 innings or be the Corey Kluber of old. What I'm saying is he can give you a 3.75 ERA in 80 to 100 innings,

and he may not make it to the end of your roster, the end of the year, but he is a decent pitcher to start the season. And he is better than the ERA estimators would have it. He's better than his 4-3 Sierra. He's better than his FIP. He's better than all those numbers, which do not have as much predictive power as you might expect. There's a natural follow-up question for me here. I think we've seen Kluber at his more extreme throw 28% curveballs, given the Rays' history with Rich Hill. And I realize Kluber's arsenal might be a little deeper,

but is there any chance we just see curveball usage go to an all-time high for Corey Kluber as well? I think it's possible. What they have listed as a slider in some places and a cutter in others, his harder breaking ball. I think that could be his primary pitch. In fact, I think about five, six years ago, I asked him, have you ever considered making your cutter your primary pitch? making your cutter your primary pitch. And then he gave me a stare that withered my insides and said in typical ClueBot form, no. But last year, 29% fastballs. So I think we're already there.

And what I would see in a successful Tampa season is 30% fastballs 30% cutters 30% curveballs and 5% changeups so he's been pretty close to those numbers but he's never actually done all three of those numbers

and I think it's possible and I think he'll do it this year yeah just seems like one of the few ways that the Rays could tweak some things and end up getting a different kind of result from late career Corey Kluber here in 2022. The other guy that you put in the same bucket is a pitcher that I think is a little more interesting and maybe a better bet to get you 175-plus innings. Tywon Walker, who is staying in new york in a very pitcher friendly environment

and you know once upon a time was the kind of guy that people were really excited about back the early part of his career felt like he had 150 to 200 range adps he's clearly outside the top 300 right now even with a little bit of, he could probably creep up to the back of the top 300 overall, and that wouldn't really be that cost prohibitive. So what is it about Walker that gives you some confidence that he can have some more success after a nice year last year with the Mets? You know, he's fairly close to average. In fact, his stuff plus is 100. So I'm not, this is not necessarily an upside play, but I love the innings on Walker. You know, I think, you know, 159 last year, he's never done, he's never done more than 170. So I'm

not saying he's a workhorse, but I think he's a pretty good lock in today's game for, you know, the 100, 140, 150. I've paired him in that, in that league of risk that I had the other day with Rodon and Syndergaard. I thought he was a perfect guy to throw in that mix in a draft and hold. Here's a guy who's probably going to be around all year. Maybe he takes a couple different stints, but a guy I can depend on a little bit more than these other higher injury risks. So I think of Walker as a medium injury risk guy with a medium amount of injury, with a medium amount of upside, medium amount of everything medium. I think of him as average. I think of him as average with a great home park. And so at the very least, I want him in

drafting holds where, you know, if all my guys are healthy, I'm pitching Walker when he's got the Marlins and Phillies at home for two starts. And then otherwise he's on my bench. And then when everybody's hurt, I'm like, thank God I got you, Tywon Walker. So that's how I think of him. And if there is upside, it's mostly because he throws that sinker a lot. It's got his worst stuff plus of his pitches. People hit 287 off of it last year.

The ISO, you know, 130 ISO is not bad, and that's why he throws it. He gets ground balls with it, but there may be more whiffs in him if he really focuses on four-seam slider splitter, because those are his best by stuff plus. Those are his best by whiff rates, and then lastly, it's nice to bet on a guy who has a decent fastball. He has a good fastball. It's his best pitch. And there's so many other guys that I'm going to talk about on this list I've got here that have bad fastballs and good secondaries.

So nice to just have one in there that has a good fastball. Yeah, we're going to take a plunge into that list in just a little while. I want to bring this next guy up now because I think he's interesting without clarity on his role for the upcoming season. That's Christian Javier. I don't think he'd come up in our closer episode

whereas someone like Alex Reyes falls into that conversation even if he's not going to close anymore. Christian Javier is just sort of an extra guy. The way the Astros project right now, you could probably call him their sixth starter. You could probably call him just a multi-inning reliever that's going to be a big-time bulk guy.

And you might be able to vulture a lot of wins and get good Ks. And in that role, you might get optimized ratios. You might end up with a low threes ERA and a good whip and a strikeout rate well over a strikeout per inning. I'm just curious what you're doing with Javier as someone that has flashed some pretty interesting skills in the past but doesn't seem like he has a clearly defined role for Houston just yet. You know, I wanted to take a real quick look at the injury factors in front of him

because i know that i have jose or kitty who's on that in that astros rotation as the seventh biggest injury risk um per jeff zimmerman's numbers this season um and i wanted to see where if any of the other guys showed up near the top. Framber Valdez actually shows up near the top. He's got a similar injury projection to Carlos Carrasco and Mike Clevenger. So that is a higher than average projection. So, and then if you look at Luis Garcia's numbers at the end of the season, he doesn't project necessarily so badly for injury risk. But if you look at his pitch mix,

there's a tweet from Alex Fast about this today, his slider and curve ball were starting to morph at the end of the season. And if you remember his post-season, I think there was a whiff of kind of, this guy's tired. There was a little bit of, you this guy's tired. There was a little bit of, you know, up and down performance in the postseason. So between Frambois, Urquidy,

and Luis Garcia, I don't think it would be even that crazy to say maybe one of those guys doesn't make it to opening day, you know, and maybe Javier's in the rotation from the beginning. That's sort of how it happened last year, right right that's sort of how Javier was in the rotation to begin with and we were all like what happens when these guys come back and then he was out but we still got a lot of value out of Javier last year do you have a earned value number for Javier last year good question because I think most people think he was a bust last year but I don't know I had him in a lot of teams where i got value out of him in the first half uh he had a lot of strikeouts decent ratios i think i did uh i i nursed him too long in a couple leagues where i should have just dropped him once he went to the

bullpen uh but uh i remember getting value from from javier last year rotowire had him at minus one for a 12 team league but i think-team league was probably the sweet spot where you would have held on to him longer. And in that format, he was a net positive $2. So if you're shuttling him in and out and not just... He probably didn't cost much more than that. Yeah. So I just think he's interesting if he gets the opportunity,

I think, with McCullers and Verlander also having elevated risk too. It could be a spot where being seventh starter is not the worst thing in the world because they may need two guys to step up into more prominent roles, and we've seen him get the opportunity in the past. Definitely some issues with walks that need to be ironed out, but I think he is still very draftable in this range. I'm curious if Zach Greinke is going to go pitch anywhere.

I know he's sitting in the same range too. He is, I would say, one of those red asses. I mean, he's a competitor. So I would assume that he will continue to pitch until everyone tells him no. I've got another name that I like here. It's Edbert elzali i think he's interesting because if he gets another pitch working then we're talking about a possible breakout we're talking about decent job security in the back of the cubs rotation and it's not a pie in the sky about this extra pitch i mean he was throwing a cutter at the end

of the season there might be kind of a cutter cutter-slider fastball solution out there for him. He had a good stuff plus number in the latter half of the season, which is clouded a little bit by being a reliever. But if you're looking at anybody in my ranks that has like a 110 plus stuff plus and did some relieving to get those numbers. Drew Rasmussen is the name I have for you. Drew Rasmussen as a reliever was a 115 stuff plus guy. And as a starter was like a 108 and 108 still pretty good. So if you clear that 110 stuff plus, even as a reliever, that's going back to starting. Azlai didn't. He's more like a 105ver that's going back to starting um asley didn't

he's more like a 105 that's why you can get him later but i i see i i see don't you think he's in the rotation to begin the year should be and yeah even without a lot of changes the one thing that could just be better is the home run rate 1.8 homers per nine last year i i've talked about this before he hasn't had extreme home run issues in the upper levels of the minors. It just doesn't seem like we've seen his baseline there yet. We talked about this maybe a month and a half ago. The extreme outliers on the bad end of home run rate

are often very good bounce back candidates. So just on that alone, without tweaks, I think he makes sense. But then there is that extra pitch that he was developing late in the year that should add some confidence as well. So just a little cluster of guys that I really like to target in this 300 to 350 or so range. And Alzelie tends to go there as well. Plenty of oatmeal to Kyle Gibson. I like Kyle Gibson so much more in a pitcher-friendly

environment. He falls out here chris flexin who i was wrong about at every single turn last year he's available in this range as well i'm wondering if you see bounce back potential in a guy like patrick corbin he's outside the top 400 we talk about one pitch guys like hill and Adam Wainwright who actually had great results on his sinker, as Alex Fast pointed out on Twitter today, had the career-best results on that. So if that sticks, then it's more than maybe just that Rich Hill sort of approach that we talked about with Wainwright. But Patrick Corbin, he always had that great curveball, right? And it's just like, what's going on with him why did he collapse so badly last season with the gnats because it was it was the kind of disaster where

if you were desperate for pitching even like a 15 team mixed league and he got caught you picked him up and you're like yes let me take this chance and it just didn't get even worse no there was no real sign of a turnaround, at least not a prolonged stretch of improvement for him. I spent a lot of time thinking about Patrick Corbin and I did a whole piece where I talked to people around him, talked to other people that model stuff, talked to everybody I could about why his stuff numbers are bad

and his results are good, why his slider does not actually, his breaking ball does not actually have amazing movement in any way, but has had great results. And the best thing I can come up with was that he had excellent, excellent command of that slider. And that makes sense because if you think about a lefty with a slider like that and no real third pitch, he has to be able to back foot that slider all the time and i think that the margin of error is just so small that maybe there was a small you know injury of some sort something that wasn't allowing him to place that slider where where he had to put it and without that location

we see what happened he's not a guy that can just muscle it through the strike zone and and uh and do it that way but i suppose like he could get it back if he comes back healthy and he can place that slider again. He could get it back. But I had so much suspicion from the beginning that I'm mostly shareless when it comes to Patrick Corbin this year. I am sorry. I think most of my other names are for 50-round end games.

Now that you're saying these names, my names are like in the 500s. One that I would consider around where these names are is very different than the one you're, the names you're saying. This is very much not Oatmeal. This is all upside. And you can only do this if you pair him with Oatmeal, I think, is Luis Gil in the Yankees. I'm not sure of his role. I'm not sure of his role to start the season i'm not sure of the role throughout the season his pitching mix is fastball slider they you know does really well by stuff plus but it is the kind of mix that could

lead to being a reliever or maybe he's a domingo herman type uh where you know he's a Domingo German type where, you know, he's mostly two pitches, but still makes it happen for four or five innings before that excellent bullpen gets in there. But if the Yankees don't add another arm, you know, and that's that's risk right there. You know, I would consider him right now the seventh starter in uh in for the yankees but i also think nestor cortez jr is due for some serious regression so it may not be too long till heel is the sixth starter and that's somebody you need uh once or twice a month even if everybody's healthy yeah i mean i think they've got enough pitching depth right now. If they want to add one more veteran, no problem, but they don't need to go out of their way to pay up for Kikuchi.

Seems like it's almost like Rodon or Bust. It's like either get someone that can be your number two or just have your guys. I think they've got pretty high hopes for Luis Severino, and for good reason, that he could be there too again. If you go Cole Severino, Montgomery, and then you've got some combination of Herman and Cortez and Tyon's going to be in that five too as long as he's healthy. Then you get down to Heal and Michael King and more of those depth guys. That's a good place to start off the season. But yeah, Heal from just a pure stuff perspective definitely caught my eye when I was looking through some of those numbers previously.

So it definitely makes sense if you're in a league deep enough for him to, you know, wait it out a little bit for him to get the opportunity. Or because he's going late enough, you can simply let him go and try to pick him up later if you don't like the role he's used in to begin the season. the season. You flagged a guy that I have liked for a little while, and he's a former Yankee current pirate with a much better path to the rotation because he's in Pittsburgh, Miguel Yajure. And he's had a little bit of injury problem that has kept him shelved in the last year or so,

but big steps forward for him ever since that trade to Pittsburgh. Yeah. And Fangraphs does not agree with us i have to actually get my my spectacles out here because the type is so small one two three four five six seven eight nine tenth tenth tenth no i'm sorry i don't agree with that he is not the 10th best starting pitcher on the pirates i've got him with three pitches uh with above average stuff plus the slide of the curve and the change the fastball is not terrible it's a 91 stuff plus so that's you know it's not like uh you know there are there are worse fastballs

on my list today um and uh the park is great and i will say that I think he's better than Will Crow. I think that Ronzi Contreras might spend more time in the minor leagues, and I think he's better than Dylan Peters, and I think that's Mick Kranich? Mike? Mick? I have to press on it. What is his first name?

Max. Max Kranich. I have to press on it. What is his first name? Max. Max Krennic. So in my head, Yohuri is like the seventh starter right now.

Yeah, that's a depth chart that you could shake up pretty fast. Any way you want. Also, you could just order it any way you want. Yeah, you're not going to get a lot of pushback on that. Mitch Keller is throwing 100 miles per hour at tread athletic. That could mean that he's the closer or whatever. You know what I mean?

There's all sorts of ways that could happen. Also, Bryce Wilson, my comp for him was Robert Gisellman, and I stick by it. Jose Quintana could just be toast. I mean, he could be. He's that close. He's on the razor's edge a little bit. And Zach Thompson and JT Brubaker edge a little bit and zach thompson and and jt

brewbreaker a little bit more oatmeal uh than anything but i suppose they're more likely to make it through the season because they'll just need to have someone pitching uh and brewmaker you know i think has a little bit more upside than than thompson so just number of pitches and slightly better command but yahuri would i think-term would be better than any of them. Yeah, I would say of all the names you mentioned, I think you mentioned Ronzi Contreras. He's the only one who I think has more ceiling right now than Yahuri of their candidates.

Yeah, definitely give him that. Keller throwing harder is pretty interesting. And fastball shape, I think, was the problem that you mentioned with him in the past. So more velo helps. Yeah, just throw through the shape. Yeah, you can just get away with more mistakes that way. So that changes some things. I guess in what leagues would you want to take a chance on Mitch Keller?

Because he's outside the top 500 overall. He's going in the range of heel. He's going after guys like Michael Waka and Ryan Yarbrough. He's going in the range of heel. He's going after guys like Michael Wacca and Ryan Yarbrough. He's going after Zach Thompson. If you're just taking a shot in Pittsburgh's rotation and you've already got Yehure or someone else sniped you on Yehure, Keller versus Zach Thompson, who's more

interesting? There's a fair amount of format stuff. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to weasel out, but if format matters, if I can need the innings then Zach Thompson. But if it's a situation where I have free agency looking at me then i will lean towards keller alzalea you know those types because i'll i'll be able to make a decision early in the season you know they'll be on my bench i'll give them two three four starts see how the stuff numbers are doing and uh and then uh and let them go if they if it's

not working out because fastball shape is something that's really hard to kind of battle your way through and uh let's say he's throwing 100 in short stints at tread that's great uh that turns into 97 in the one inning stint at spring that turns into 96 in the two inning stint then he's sitting 95 94 now all of a sudden he's he's not all that different than he was before and we don't have no idea if his shape of his fastball changed you know what i mean and we won't know until opening day so uh there is a little difference for me here and drafting holds around this time um like i i have my i don't know if i have my roster right in front of me but um a lot of

times oh i took pictures of it a lot of times you'll um uh you know what i find my in this section i go for the oatmeal because i need the innings you know uh and i feel like there's i can take shots in the dark later so the middle of my draft uh went uh taiwan walker uh madison bumgarner ryan yarbrough uh reaver san martin mike's mike soroka is a bit of a shot in the dark but sammy long alec mills and then i uh late took that shot on your hurry so uh i mean i guess i could have taken keller over your hurry i wouldn't i'd like the hurray's shape of his fastball better i like the i like his wider arsenal better and then keller also has another problem which is he's always had really bad command so it's just more there's just

a lot of obstacles there you know what's pretty interesting is i i see the adps of the rotation candidates in kansas city they're all available late. Brady Singer, you're looking at Carlos Hernandez. They're going in that 425 to 450 range. Yeah, it's the fastball choices, right? It's a lot of sinkers. Bubich, Lynch. And guess which one it likes the most?

It's Carlos Hernandez, who actually has a four sink. There you go. But I guess if they're going to take a step forward this year, it has to come from the pitching. So when you get past the fastballs, when you dig into other parts of the arsenal, is Hernandez the best shot you can actually take of all those guys, even though Lynch was the most highly regarded prospect initially?

I think Lynch, I like Lynch second best. But Hernandez, and then Hernandez's big problem is command. But, you know, it's a it's a it's an above average uh stuff profile overall uh there's multiple pitches there that are above average uh it's a really nice home park um it's i don't know that um i think he's going to be amazing but i do think he'll be the best Royals pitcher out. I'm sorry. But the park always makes them look a little bit better than they are. So, you know, that's in terms of, I think the Carlisle Hernandez is the one I think is going to be most usable.

And then if I had to pick a second, I'd pick Lynch. I do think this is a fun range because you can get whatever you want. You can get someone who was supposed to be good who hasn't been good yet. You can get someone who used to be good who's been broken. You can get a prospect that hasn't showed up yet, or you can just chase a high volume of innings. And my general advice would be to mix it up. There's an old pal of mine, Mike Podhorcer, An old pal of mine, Mike Podhorcer, was just doing the Raz Slam the other day. And he took every single injury risk picture.

All of them. I mean, he's got all of them. He got Kershaw, Severino, Sindergaard. I mean, he just got every single one. Just leaned in fully and took every single one uh and it's the biggest boom bust situation i could ever see uh there's a place for that and i think razzlam is a decent place for that because it's a sort of a ricky bobby if you ain't first your last kind of situation um and it's a it's an overall prize situation where there's you know there's tons of people vying for the very top um and it's

best ball so like you know the the work is all done for you you don't have to guess who's injured or who's healthy or whatever the the thing just spiders and does it for you but if you want to win your league you know especially if you don't if there's no overall especially it's not on nfbc and you just want to beat the other 11 or 14 people in your league, I would say mix it up. Because then you'll have a couple things that win, you'll have a couple that lose and then you can move on and get into free agency and replace some of those guys and beat your

teammates. If you go all hands in one basket, you could be at the very last. Then you've got to get that tattoo or drink the bucket that they all make or whatever gross thing that your league does for last place. What are you doing to people that finish last in your leagues? Wow.

Sounds terrible. No ideas, Pitchforks League. If any of you are listening, no ideas. The other interesting pitchers in this range for me, Spencer Howard is still going here. And I know health has been a big part of why he hasn't necessarily been able to deliver on his potential yet. I like that he got moved out of Philadelphia and into a more pitcher-friendly environment in Texas. And there's a clear opportunity for him there.

He would fit more into the group of, yes, I'm still interested despite some things that we've seen because it was only 49 and two-thirds innings at the big league level last year. Yeah, I know the ratios were awful, but the walk rate probably isn't staying close to 5 per 9, right? 11.8%. It's off the charts high for him compared to what we saw at a lot of other previous stops. And I think we've seen enough good stuff from him and live looks back in the fall league it's just hard for me to think that there isn't something more that the rangers can get out of him you know and and you know model aside or whatever like i i like seeing chaos in a picture like his um where

the results haven't been there, I like seeing the fact that he threw his cutter more than his foreseam in his last start and that he threw his cutter with the Rangers more than he ever did with the Phillies. So I don't know that the model loves the cutter, but it is chaos, right? It is change. It is something different. It's not just the Spencer Howard that's been struggling in Philly. There's a new mix there.

Maybe he comes out of this with the fastball cutter curve and those are his three pitches. Whereas I think the Phillies were trying to do something different with him. Throw one dart at either Spencer Howard, AJ Puck or Nate Pearson for this season only? Which one would you take? Nate Pearson. Interesting. What do you like about Pearson the most? Just the biggest fastball? I mean, it's all about health. For me, it's health and command, but I think those are tied together. I think the reason he struggled so much K-Man-wise is that he wasn't healthy.

And I think he had off-season surgery for the sports hernias type thing i'm just hoping he's got it all figured out and uh the i think the ceiling is the highest on that puck uh puck has think, a similarly high ceiling and then similar problems. I just, I'm really close to Puck, right? Like I'm here in Oakland. And it just seemed like they never really considered him as a starter coming back. In that case, they need a closer. Lou Trevino's not the closer long term.

Puck could be that guy. Trevino is one of the worst rated closers I have on my board. I think he might be the worst. So if you're looking for a soft spot for closer opportunities, Puck is interesting. I'm going to throw him as an honorary wrench into my closers article. Thank you. Yeah, he should be in there, I think. The other team that's got some depth where there's opportunity is Cincinnati.

Maybe we see a trade after we get through the lockout. One of the more established guys goes, and one of the younger guys has a more firm hold on his rotation spot. But Vladimir Gutierrez really wasn't a guy that I heard a lot about prior to his debut last year. And there's definitely a, wait, who? When he got the call and digging into him, I thought the minor league results. There wasn't a long track record there. He said, okay, I definitely believe this guy is going to be a good big league starter. What we saw in his debut with the Reds was actually a lot like what we saw for most of his time in the minors.

But that little bit of time, he's a triple A. He looked really good. I'm curious to know what you think of him and some of the other depth options vying for roles in Cincinnati. Well, he rated as average across the board, and that's average across the board in a tough home park. So I have him as kind of a best ball or deep draft and hold guy

where you'd be pitching him mostly away from home. But it's a wide arsenal of slightly average or slightly above average, slightly below average pitches, you know. And what's kind of amazing to me is I think that it's an example of just developing a guy to be the best he can be. I don't think that he's necessarily got a ton of upside. There's obviously guys behind him in that Reds rotation like Hunter Green and Nick Lodolo that are on their way up that are going to take his job, but he is the sort of ideal guy to have in your organization as a fourth or fifth starter.

The health outcomes for him have been good, and they really coached him up to just be the best he can be. So, you know, I think Gutierrez is a useful kind of halftime away from home deep league starter. I do have some knowledge about Nick Lodolo's injuries last year that basically what happened was he developed blisters and then wanted to pitch in the Futures game, I think, when he hadn't been pitching that much because of the blisters. And I think after the Futures game, went down with some sort of shoulder irritation. And it had a lot to do with the stop and start of a season that was due to his blisters.

So I don't know. It's kind of hard to kind of read the tea leaves on that right it's like uh you know is it blisters an ongoing thing is that just going to keep manifesting or is the shoulder thing that happened because of blisters way more worrisome than anything uh but there is a universe there in the multiverse where lododolo kind of figures this out and kind of shrugs it off and is great next year. I still kind of assume for manipulation reasons that Hunter Green and Nick Lodolo start the season in the minors,

which gives you a little bit of time, even if Sonny Gray or Luis Castillo is not traded, to enjoy Gutierrez and San Martin at the back end of that rotation. And I think they're going to do some good things, maybe a little bit more away from home, but they're decent pitchers. They've coached those guys up. You've got some really late pitchers that you wanted to highlight

on this episode, so I feel like we should get those in this is for mono league and drafting hold formats mostly these maybe are guys that you're thinking about picking up early in the season if things break their way if we're talking about a 15 team league one of these guys was my last pick in that league i just read out the starting staff for, it was the last pick in a 50-round draft and hold of 15 teams. So somewhere around 735. That's very late. I mean, most leagues don't go that far. So yeah, remember that for context.

The trio of names here that I have been targeting really late in these draft and holds are Keegan Thompson with the Cubs, Griffin Jacks with the Twins, and Corbin Martin with the Diamondbacks. I think all three are six starters. Griffin Jacks may actually start the season in the rotation. We'll have to see on that. All three are six starters. All three have different things going for them. Griffin Jacks has one thing going for him. His slider has a 132 stuff plus.

It's great. His fastball has an 81 stuff plus. That is horrid uh but given the fact that everybody knew he was going to throw the slider and that was his best pitch and everyone was probably sitting slider he got a 224 batting average against an 18 percent whiffs on the slider it's a slider league and he has a slider that's that's sometimes when you're at 750 that's enough keegan thompson has two breaking balls a rate well and a foreseeing that has a 95 stuff plus uh there's a there's a fair amount of upheaval in that cubs rotation uh if there's any advancement in that young pitcher uh i think he uh is kind of right there with azalea in terms of you know one could take the job from the other. Both have kind of similar profiles, and one is way cheaper than the other.

Azulay is going in the top 100 starting pitchers. King Thompson is not. Now, Corbin Martin has an injury plus maybe depth chart issue. They signed Dan Straley. That pushes Corbin Martin to sixth or seventh on the depth chart. The command numbers were horrid. The fastball is 93 stuff plus, but the changeup 130, slider 113, curve 104. So that's three secondary pitches. It's a little bit like the Miguel Ujuri profile with worse command and a more established depth chart in front of him and some injury concerns. But he even goes further down than Ujuri. So those are

my three kind of end game sleepers. And in fact, there are some that I haven't even listed because I'm writing a sleeper list that will be published, uh, with the draft kit, uh, which I believe drops Monday. So, uh, there are a couple more names that I haven't mentioned,

uh, that I'm going to keep holstered for now. All right. Well, you know, we'll talk about them probably after the piece comes out. I'm sure you can read it. Yeah.

We'll talk about it. Why the piece comes out. I'm sure people can read it. We'll both. We'll talk about it. Why wouldn't we? Milk cow situation here. No, what's... I'm not going to do the whole thing. Don't, yeah. No, it's terrible.

I think people got it. Yeah. You have liked Corbin Martin in the past. Did you get any shares of him on your drafting holds? I don't have him yet because i was worried about the health and i think you can pretty easily spot him as their number six tyler gilbert nice story last year not necessarily their best option to fill in if someone uh if someone goes down so i could see martin being that guy i think man pitching at reno is brutal i wonder if they would keep him around as a multi-inning reliever

and then just bump him into the rotation. You look at the depth guys they have in that stable of bullpen arms. Do they have six relievers better than Corbin Martin would be in a multi-inning role? I don't think they do. Straley is interesting going back there. I think he was a forgotten player, so he's kind of quietly i think in this range for your last few rounds or your projections are bad but i've been talking to straley while he's been in korea and like he

did some work on his pitches i think his slider is probably better now than it has been he's always been a change up first guy but if he comes back with a change up and a slider uh you know it may not matter that he's only sitting at 89 90 yeah i i could definitely see that i actually think reed detmers who came up on the episode we were talking about teams that could surprise us this year i want to mention him again i mean this was supposed to be the most major league ready pitcher from that draft class in the summer of 2020 clearly a need need for the Angels, a rough start for him last year to his big league career, but it was such a difficult time for guys to break in and home runs were a problem. Walks generally have not been a problem for Reid Detmers throughout his

time in college and even through the time he was in the minors last year. I don't think a 10.9% walk rate is here to stay. I don't think a 10.9% walk rate is here to stay. I don't think he's going to have a home run rate issue as bad as he did last year. So there's just like automatic improvement just with those things normalizing. And I mean, he's obviously very young. He just turned 22 back in July. So tons of growth potential, fantastic curve ball.

Picked up Velo last year too. Different decent amount of whiffs in his debut, even though the strikeout rate wasn't good. and yeah definitely definitely added velo one thing that concerns me about the angels is that i wouldn't say that they necessarily are right now bottom five in player development but i would think that uh generally that's around where they sit and it doesn't take much to kind of uh see why that is they basically uh stop paying their minor leaguers and all their coaches during covid uh during the lockdowns so that kind of gives you an idea of how much they they value player development um things might be changing uh there's a new sheriff in town, new GM. But I do wonder how long it takes to turn a tanker.

You know what I mean? Like if you're, it's a big organization. It's a lot of people. I know they've hired some good people from Driveline and other places. But I just, I wonder how long it takes to kind of really change organizational philosophy and if they have the stomach for it and if they are putting the resources into it and so then we're banking on detmer's private coaching and that their private coaching did i think help detmers to that uh that increase in velocity so i don't know exactly where he trained so they did some good there but um you know if we're asking them

to add more velocity or change the shape of his pitches um you know i don't know i don't know that i i can point to a place and be like okay these people will help him do that you know he's i don't want to like just be like oh dodgers pitcher is good but like mitch white is going to come up with the dodgers and you know all the shape on the pitches are excellent and even if he pitches in longer stints, they have been limiting how many innings he pitches in a given start. But even if they take the shackles off him, I'd have much more confidence in the Dodgers player development machine

than I would in the Angels one. How about rookie pitchers that you're willing to stash? Mitch White. Yeah. So, I mean, I think there's a few other names that are pretty interesting too. I don't want to have a roster full of these guys. Even in draft and hold, you don't want to have

too many pitching prospects. I don't want it. I almost don't do any. There's no exceptions. What about guys that have debuted and barely spent time in the big leagues? I get a little bit of that taste of Stuff Plus. That's why I why i like mitch white is i got i got i got i got some pitch movements i got to see them if anybody out there listening has minor league uh pitch data they want to send me then then i might change my my tune a second plea has been made on the cast yeah edward cabrera is

another guy he debuted last year but but barely i I mean, 26 in a third innings. We are just going to talk about all my guys, aren't we? Was he on your sheet? Yeah. No, he's on the piece, not in the sheet. I think I told you and didn't want to talk about him. Oh, well, that was an accident. Anyway, yes, Cabrera, bad location in his debut,

but that's not sticky year to year on the edges. So especially someone that came up, didn't throw a big sample, and doesn't have a history of like 30 command. I think that Cabrera's command will improve, and the stuff plus was decent. I don't think he's that far from the rotation, especially with Pablo Lopez's injury history and a possible trade. So yes, Edward Cabrera is a rookie keeper for me,

a rookie dart for me. But for redraft purposes, you're mostly out on Nick Lodolo and Hunter Green and Max Meyer. I mean, those are the – Grayson Rodriguez, those are the guys that go usually after pick 500. Green makes me a little bit excited, but is he not costing much? He might be more expensive than some of those names I mentioned. Let's see. Hunter Green,

478 ADP since February 1st. Sorry. I should know. I've got to divide that by 15. It's like round 30. 32nd round. End game of a 15-teamer with normal benches. It's i just i'm not sure that

he'll start the season in cincinnati so then if you take him in a league where you know okay first week he's not on your roster do you how long are you gonna wait i think he's an immediate cut if he doesn't break camp with them unless you've got perfect health on your roster and you're like i'm gonna burn this for one week so you're minimal stashing i think there could be some growing pains there i mean i think even with that velo i think he might get hit a little bit at the big league level right so that i'm i'm not convinced he comes up and just dominates right away i think the guys that come up and dominate right away have deep arsenals i think you're looking for three or four pitches from rookies that are going to come up and figure it out quickly. Yeah. Shane Baz is not in this conversation somehow. He's not a

stash. I think he's actually worth the money. I think he's worth investing in. I think he's worth holding on to through a couple of weeks of not pitching. So it's kind of separate is all I'm saying. For me, he's separate from this conversation. I'm going to take Baz out and put all the rest in. Green is my favorite because I think he's really close and I do love his stuff. Grayson Rodriguez, I have a lot of respect

for his stuff too, but the Baltimore player development machine has been rated really poorly recently. Even with the ballpark change, I could see that being a tough place to debut against the yankees against the red socks against the rays and i don't think he'll necessarily start the season there so i'm not uh i'm not uh full bore into that one it's a tough uphill battle even though we like the changes that have been made to the ballpark at camden Yards. Anybody else in this late, late range, oatmeal or otherwise, that has caught your eye?

I kind of like Ronaldo Lopez. Obviously not a rookie pitcher stash, but just a guy that got a little better last year. I know it's always tricky when it's a split role, leaning a little more toward the pen, right? I think a lot more of his innings came from the pen than we would have expected but a 343 era 0.95 whip fixed the walk issues a career low walk rate from ronaldo lopez still had a home run issue and he's had he's had home run trouble long enough to know that he has an elevated home run rate for a baseline i think that's that's where i'm i'm at with like what we've seen from him so far but if you're going to give me lopez and say that he's their new six starter i'm pretty intrigued by him as a late filler and he's the kind of guy you draft him if it doesn't break

your way he's one of your first cuts he fits really well in draft and holds he fits really well in al only leagues and really deep keeper leagues for people out there i think he might be available in some of those leagues and worth uh worth just stashing to see kind of how things play out for him in the first part of this season. Yeah, I like Domingo German in New York. He's being picked in the 400s. I think he's in the rotation to start the season. I'd rather recommend somebody else, you know, history-wise, but the stuff is good, and the third pitch is surprisingly good. He's not completely two-pitch, so that's a name I like. Another name I like is Glenn Otto. You know, among the young pitchers you know, among the young pitchers in Texas,

he actually has the best combination of stuff in Location Plus, better than Howard. So I should have mentioned him when we discussed Howard. Yeah, he could fit into that bucket as well. Pretty interesting development story. Dane Dunning also. The Rangers pitching, no one jumps off the page right now, but they're all so cheap and there are so many viable spots you could stream them. Most home matchups, a couple road spots.

We've talked about Oakland and their expected rebuild. They'll be a reasonably easy target for streaming, I think, sooner rather than later. I think I mentioned Cody Morris on an episode of either this show or the Athletic Fantasy Baseball podcast recently. Hasn't debuted yet, has seen AAA already, has had great results in the upper levels of the minors, tons of strikeouts, good walk rate, no major home run issues at AA or AAA last season.

We're talking, I think three pretty good pitches, probably better command than expected compared to the scouting grades. So a lot of that's an organizational bet to Cleveland's done a great job developing pitching. So if you have a guy knocking on the door to be big league ready, you know, why wouldn't you trust a Cleveland pitcher at this point, given their recent track record,

really interested to see how Daniel Espino does in that organization. He's struck out everybody in the minor leagues. Last year, he had a 45% strikeout rate in high A. That's high A. The next jump to double A is going to be really, really rough, but he has really good velocity and some of the best spin in the minors so there's something a little bit different from him than past fast cleveland starters in that he's kind of starting with this big strikeout rate and this big fastball that doesn't really count for any of the rest of the ones that i can think of so he's a little bit different uh and then maybe maybe he'll uh maybe he'll just maybe he'll be perfect maybe he'll be the best cleveland starter anyway that's a sort of a dynasty pick i'm not sure if he'll make it up this year um but i was looking at the name i would take griffin canning over Reed Detmers, myself. I think I have him ranked that way.

I just see Canning having showed me three legit pitches in the fastball slider and curve, and I think all I'm waiting for is some good health news. We're kind of flying blind a little bit on all this health news right now. Yeah, right. If Canning is on the same schedule as the rest of the Angels pitchers when spring training starts, whenever that happens to be, I assume that gives him a bump up for you and for anybody else out there

who's filed his name away as someone to keep an eye on. He's kind of a watch list guy outside of draft and hold right now. One thing I did in my rankings that i will update for the draft kit um the new thing that i did was i went through and i put in their depth chart position from fan graphs for every pitcher just so i could have look and just see oh six eight nine you know whatever that really helped me uncover some spots where, you know, I probably should have had – I'm not going to draft Kyle Quantrill because I don't think he's that great.

But he was among sort of eights and nines when he's like a three or four. So that really helped me kind of sort guys into bins a little bit better where kind of give you an idea of how many innings you might get from these guys and where they might be on rosters to begin the season and stuff like that. Hopefully, that'll help people too. That'll be part of the sortable ranks where they can just sort it one, two, three, four and see who the best fourth starter in baseball is. Yeah, I think that's a good way to think about this because there's a ton of guys that seemingly have a lot of job security that go late.

And yeah, the skills might just be so-so, but I think as we've learned, it's a volume game. You need to make sure you're getting enough innings, piling up enough Ks, making sure you're getting yourself a chance at enough wins to actually be as competitive as you can possibly be. And there's a few free agents trickling through this range too. I mean, I don't know if we're going to see anything else from Michael Pineda that we

haven't seen already. Maybe in the right circumstances, he'd be sort of interesting again. It's really a question for me of what you need when you get to this late stage. I would agree. You're pretty much out on throwing the darts on the young, young pitchers. I would say limit yourself to one, even in draft and hold. You don't want a cluster of guys that you're waiting for to debut. It could all be zeros. It could be all zeros for months, and it could be a bumpy road,

even when you get them to start showing up in the big leagues so just be very careful if i were taking one shot on a pitcher that hadn't debuted yet i'm a little more comfortable with grace and rodriguez than you are and i think it's because i just think the arsenal is that good i mean yeah going into the al east having to pitch against those teams right away is a problem i think they have so little to gain by waiting on him that you'll have to wait less for him than some of the other rookie pitchers that we're hoping to see debut early in 2022. So on that note, we are going to go.

If you've got questions about pitchers we didn't get to, there are plenty of names that we didn't mention. Feel free to shoot those our way. Four shows on starting pitchers. We did it. We got to four. We got closers, well, relievers coming up on Thursday, tomorrow already. My week's a little bit banged up as

a result of taking a couple of days off. Lou Trevino. Sorry, Lou. You didn't hear me say that. The preview is you probably don't want Lou Trevino as one of your closers even though Lou Trevino might be a nice guy. I't know i've never met him but rates and barrels at the athletic.com if you've got questions for us you can also tweet at us he is at you know saris i'm at derek van riper you can drop a question on to the comment section of this video if you're

watching us on youtube be sure to hit the like button and subscribe to this channel if you haven't done so already that's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening.