Rates & Barrels - 2022 Outfielder Review

Episode Date: October 17, 2022

Eno and DVR battle a sinus infection and microphone issues take a look back at the Outfielder pool from 2022. From a group that fared well overall, are there any early rebound candidates to target at potential discounts? Can we apply anything from the success of this year's rookie class to future prospects? Rundown 3:07 Reasonable Regression From a Historically Great Season 10:43 Yordan Alvarez & Best Hitter v. Best Fantasy Player 15:06 Looking Back for Early Disappointments 17:55 Cedric Mullins' Breakout Year Follow-Up 19:42 Mike Trout's High Volume of PT Post IL 27:10 Underperforming Top-25 Outfielders 37:01 Nick Castellanos & Roller Coaster Players 40:28 Can We Learn Anything From Michael Harris II & Steven Kwan? 45:15 Making Sense of AVG-heavy Players (Jeff McNeil) 51:17 2022 Rookie Class Success Impact on Future Rookies? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Try Tim's new Sweet Chili Chicken Loaded Wraps and Bowls today. Take your taste buds on an exciting new adventure for lunch or dinner with our delicious new Sweet Chili Sauce. It's time for Sweet Chili Chicken. It's time for Tim's. At participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Monday, October 17th. Derek Van Ryper here with Dino Saris still in someone else's imaginary living room. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see my microphone and my headphones keep disappearing. Very cool magic trick that I can do kind of randomly. I can't control it, but I can do the tricks. So I guess

that's better than not being able to do the trick at all. I have no tricks for you. Yeah, you're a little better standing, which probably if this was the first time this was happening, you'd probably just think this was normal. You wouldn't see anything wrong with what's going on in my video. So, you know, I'm glad you are aware of what's happening, because if you weren't, it would be very confusing. Yes, there it is. There's your microphone. Yeah, it's here. But yeah, no, I'm back from San Diego, which was crazy.

In the last week, I've been to a Pet Shop Boys concert, went to Friday night's Padres game, and went to a benefit that my father-in-law was helping throw um that was literally across the street from petco at the library so all the staff that wasn't immediately busy was hanging out outside on the balcony literally watching the big screen uh over at petco uh for game five um and uh yeah i was in the stands on friday all of it really fun except uh i i got a sinus infection uh last week before the pet shop boys uh concert and uh have it's been really laying me low and then i added oh this is this was just a topper. So I've been getting a little better over time. And Friday, I felt good enough to go to the game. We stop in this nice Thai place.

I'm like, oh, you know what? I need one of those. I need a spicy Thai soup. That's what I need to clear up my sinuses. So I drink this spicy Thai soup, eat some eat some duck feel okay get to the ballpark and the bottom drops out of my stomach like oh no oh no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no where do we go from here that may have been one of the lows of my life. It may have been one of the lows of my life.

But I survived. And I'm here now. So that's something. Yeah, the important thing is that you're here. On this episode, we are reviewing outfielders in 2022. Take a look back at where value came from, where value might have been lost, kind of following our script for the series that we started up just a couple of weeks ago. The outfield in 2022 was kind of an Aaron Judge-led situation. Looking at the auction calculator,

Aaron Judge was worth $54 in a 15-team mixed league in 2022. Mookie Betts, who had a great season, was worth just a tick under $30 by the same calculation. So a massive gap. And of course, Judge had that sort of lead over most other players there were a few infielders that got up into the mid 30s we'll get to later on but aaron judge was a third round pick in 15 team leagues there were leagues in which aaron judge fell and i'm trying to remember why i cannot recall the the most consistent reasoning or arguments against taking Aaron Judge where he was going.

I think it was just injuries. I think it was just a past track record of health. And one of the toss-ups, if you look back at ADP from April, was Aaron Judge versus Whit Merrifield. And then right before Aaron Judge and ADP was Byron Buxton, who also, of course, had plenty of injury concerns going into this season as well. So I could kind of see the Buxton-Judge thing. And I think with Buxton, I think about how the NFPC works.

We're always looking for the player that also steals a lot of bases. So I can understand how you might talk yourself into Buxton over Judge back then. And then I'm looking at the Whit Merrifield thing and I'm saying to myself, if I had been in that situation where I was trying to say, do I want the power guy or the speed guy? And I chose the speed guy

and it was Whit Merrifield. I would still feel awful about that six and a half months later. Yeah. We talk about how decisions, any one decision probably can't sink or kill or make your team win. But that one's pretty close. That would be a massive differential.

Looking at my main, I did JT or Real Muto, which is doing something totally different in the third. And the team that won that ended up second overall in the entire main, I think, or top three or something, the team that won my league, he took Trevor Story. So even not taking Judge and taking Whit Merrifield, if you did everything else right, it'd be alright. But still, I do

think that there is something to learn there, which is just the stuff we've been saying, the little bit of speed. Go with the little bit of speed, rather than the one big speedster. Especially when they're projected around that kind of...

What was that? The Jeff Zimmerman line? Oh, the low OPS. The OPS. So even last year, Whit Merrifield had a 673. No, this year he had a 673. Last year he had a 673 last year at a 711 so he's he's fairly close to that line um where you know they could even lose their job um but uh i'm not saying that he's really in that he's not you know he's not he's no mile strong but at the same time he is in that category a little bit for me so i i would never have

made that particular mistake i don't think uh but i didn't i didn't get a lot of shares of aaron judge and i wonder if i'll get a lot of shares of aaron judge next year i don't particularly ascribe to the idea that um the sort of the contract year, you know, the, the, you know, I know Glenn Colton and Rick Wolf are big on not buying, not, you know, sort of building around players that just signed a big contract. And I don't know if I necessarily believe a hundred percent in that. But I think if there is truth to it, is maybe never pay full price for someone that just obviously had a

peak year. That, I think, is why the way their rule is described I think is a little bit accidentally misleading. Is that we might assume that the pressure of the

New Deal causes a player to swing and miss more often early. And I think you've seen some things like that. You've talked about that on the show before, right? The, the O swing percentages sometimes increase for players, traded players,

new teams. Like some of that, some of that's legit. I do think what we're talking about in this case with their rule about the big contract new team is more just what you're saying it is watching out for regression coming off the career year more likely than not someone who reaches a peak is coming down at least a little bit and i think i mean even austin riley is a good random example of someone who i i thought was a good player and i thought i thought we saw the peak already and sometimes you you think you've seen the peak and

you haven't that's possible i think for what just did, we've seen a season similar to this before, but this was clearly better. And this was historically great. So I think you have a few more markers that make it easier for you to say, okay, 2022 Aaron Judge is not what you're getting in 2023. How much regression do you cook in considering all these other factors which could include a new team in a new park right it could be a lower quality supporting cast even if it's only a slight downgrade it will be likely a less hitter friendly ballpark most places he goes those things matter even though aaron judge is an elite player. I also think of stolen bases. He stole 16 bases this year.

That's a big part of that value. In full seasons before, he stole nine and six. In 2021, he had a full season. He stole six bases. He's more likely to want to protect himself after signing a big deal. His new team might even tell him to steal less. Yeah, organization with philosophy, a lot of things can play into that. I mean, if you were projecting Aaron Judge today, I assume you're projecting 145 or 150 games because the types of injuries he's had, some of them are the bad luck variety.

I think he had the broken wrist because of a hit by pitch. So I think there's some injury risk, but now we're looking at, you know, maybe like a, a B health grade or a B minus health grade at worst for him. There's some big man injuries he's had like back, you know?

Right. But 140, 145 games next year, projecting for a neutral location, just because we don't know where he's going to play. Are you looking for 35 homers, 40 homers? And it's a huge drop off from 62, but 280, 40, 45, maybe five stolen bases, maybe, maybe not, maybe, maybe eight. Right. So is that that different than what people were expecting Vlad

Jr. to do going into 2022? Vlad Jr. was a top five pick. Yeah. So even with regression, he's a top five pick. Good point. I don't know how much I'll have him either. Part of that's just landing in the first part of the first round. Part of that is being in a situation where it's

in a dollar for dollar scenario. Do you want to build your team that way? Or do you feel better aiming for more $20, $25 players? I pushed more toward the latter and had a lot of success with that. So I tend to think there's better ways to build going that direction. I think there's another name at the top of this list that makes me, uh, feel better about picking Aaron judge that early, uh, in an interesting way,

which is Jordan Alvarez, where, you know, if I didn't get, uh, you know, I have some shares of him, but if I didn't get the shares of your don,

it was because I was trying to get guys with speed where he went. And, and it is the benefit of getting, uh, a speedster, is that you can then balance him with someone like Jordan Alvarez, who isn't going to necessarily steal bases, but is a really excellent, you know, top two hitter in the game. And in fact, even through age 30, a top 15 hitter of all time.

That seems like someone you should put on your roster and figure out how to get the steals later. You know what I mean? So even if you project Aaron Judge for five steals, that's not a reason to avoid it. You'd say 280 with that power and speed for Judge, and if you look at

Jordan for this season, 37 homers, a new career high for him. That was in 561 played appearances. So if you get that games played count up another 10 to 15 games, if he gets to 145 or 150, he can probably match judge right around 40 home runs. He'd probably project him for just a few less. Stolen bases, yeah, you're probably getting a zero in that category.

Fine. You might get a better average for him, Alvarez, because he's shown the proclivity to strike out less. Right. So lower K rate. He's like Aaron Judge with fewer strikeouts. Lower K rate. So probably a higher average.

Unlikely to get the steals. I'm fine with this. I think at worst, at the absolute worst, Jordan Alvarez is a late first round pick and probably more of a mid-first round pick. He's going to be one of those guys you're always afraid of because of the run, but I don't think you should be afraid of him at all. If I'm at an auction, I might prefer

Jordan Alvarez to judge. Yeah, because it's going to save you and give you an upgrade later. You know, and you still get a first rounder. And that five bucks might get you so that you have two second rounders in terms of talent level. Yeah, maybe it's a bump from a 25 to a 30 or from a 20 to 25. And that could be a pretty big difference.

Yeah, or you spend that on your pitchers and you get a better pitcher. So I'm not saying i'm gonna avoid judgment you know you do there is the the the injury history uh and there is the obvious peak peak year uh it's interesting to me um that uh i chose kyle tucker for my AL Labor squad and got into a lot of discussions with people online about how Jordan Alvarez was the better hitter. I said, well, he is the better hitter, but Tucker steals bases and I think he's the better fantasy player. By the auction calculator, Jordan Alvarez is worth $28.80

and Kyle Tucker is worth $27.70. So that's maybe a little bit weird if you think of them as hitters, pure hitters. Yeah, Yonan Alvarez is clearly the better pure hitter. But those stolen bases meant a lot. $6 of value for Kyle Tucker and stolen bases and minus $2.40 from Yonan Alvarez. And with Tucker, I mean, he came in a little light batting average too.

257 is the lowest we've seen from him in his last three seasons now. And I don't think that has to be. I think there might be another peak season going forward. That's the amazing thing about Yonan Alvarez and Kyleucker both is they're 25 aaron judge is 30. yep you know so kyle tucker may have a 30 30 season in him and he may be able to especially when you look at a strikeout rate do 330 30. so maybe i'll just sign up for kyle tucker part two well the top 15 outfielders if we look back at april adp was soto in the first part of round one harper was a first rounder kyle tucker late first rounder trout late first rounder luis robert and mookie betts all with adps inside the top 15 and you had a kunya right at that one

two turn alvarez about five to seven picks later teoscarcar Hernandez was up there, also ahead of Judge. But no real bust. As bad as Soto was, you still got $16 out of him. He still ended up being a top 25 outfielder. As bad as Teoscar, or as injured as Teoscar was, you still got a top 25 outfielder. So was there a bust in there on this one? A bad bust?

I guess so Yeah because we're talking about extreme In that early part of the first round You should get a little bit more back from a player than that Yeah And Acuna didn't come back exactly as well as people had hoped. Those two are the only sub-15 ADP outfielders that didn't end up basically in the top 15. I can double check that real quick. Buxton was very good on a per-game basis, but I think he ended up being, after a fast start, a frustrating player to have.

And he eventually did miss a bunch of time later in the year, too. So I think that's one of those picks that looked amazing, and that looked okay, and it didn't ruin you, but you probably wish you'd done something different just because of the amount of time that was lost to injuries. And then, of course, there was always like this week to week concern about the number of games he was going to play, even when he wasn't on the I.L. So let's be clear when it comes to shipping internationally. Can I provide trade documents electronically? Mm hmm. The answer is FedEx.

OK, but what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments? How do I find all the... Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a regulatory specialist I can ask about? FedEx. Oh, but let's say that... FedEx. What?

FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx. Where now meets next. Whoa, what are you listening to this for? Wait, who's talking? You know you're driving a 2024 Ford Escape with available Alexa built-in,

so you can change the music. Oh, yeah. Alexa, change station to 99.2. See? Purchase a 2024 Escape ST-Line all-wheel drive with Tech Pack at 3.49% APR for 72 months with down payment. That's just $267 bi-weekly. Cash value of $40,294.

Plus, eligible Ford owners get a $1,000 bonus. For details, visit your local Ford store or Ford.ca. All right, so for the most part, the early outfielders returned well, right? I mean, Ronald Acuna wasn't quite himself. He stole a lot more bases than I would have expected. If you would have said predict power and speed and how those categories were going to be balanced for him coming off the ACL,

I would have probably had that flipped. If you gave me the two totals, I would have had them in the opposite columns for sure. I think there's going to be some shuffling here. Bryce Harper actually lost outfield eligibility. He'll be UT only in 2023, so that's a bit strange. He'll probably pick up outfield eligibility somewhat early in the season. I imagine,

help permitting, he'll start playing the outfield again because he's a better outfielder than Nick Castellanos, but you may have to go a week or two weeks at least without having him in your outfield mix. I don't know if that's going to cause a massive drop in where he is drafted, but something to be mindful of at least

as you think about how rosters can be put together. I do wonder with Cedric Mullins, did Cedric Mullins have a good follow-up year to the breakout? I think we talked about him late in the year. I'm more on the side that this was a pretty good follow-up overall, just given how difficult it is to... We talked earlier about how difficult it is to hold the gains from a career year.

I think he held about as much of the good stuff that we needed him to do to say it was actually a successful follow-up season. Yeah. I think he ended up being a good investment. If you look at him on the auction calculator to Fangrass in terms of dollars earned versus investment sort of ADP,

he beat Tasker Hernandez, Starling Marte, and Whit Merrifield, who were all taken above him. And obviously, Luis Rivera, but that's a little bit more of an injury situation. But, you know,

he beat a bunch of guys who were taken above him and ended up returning about as much money as Mike Trout, who went in the first round. Mike Trout. Mike Trout. Does Rotowire agree?

I've got the fan graphs calculator open right now, so I'm going to guess that's pretty similar. I'll pop it open. It's a very different set of values. Trout has become more of a

traditional kind of... The batting average is still up, so it's not quite. He's more of a 300, but he doesn't steal bases anymore is my point. And Mullins is more of a five-category contributor. The Roto-Wire earned values have Trout at 28, Mullins at 26, but same neighborhood at least. Yeah.

I think the interesting thing with Trout, we had one of our listeners send us a pretty good breakdown of just what was going on at the time and how it was basically that the treatment was going to work and he's going to be fine down the stretch or it wasn't going to work and he's got to be shut down. And there was a good chance that because of the longer term concerns that were initially pushed out there, when Trout went on the IL, there might be a discount worth taking on him in 2023 and seeing how his season finished seeing how much the angels played him in absolutely

meaningless games that was a really encouraging sign yeah that's true unless unless they were just being completely stupid but i don't think no he talked about that kind of organization i think they found a routine that worked for him and Trout can get that being Trout. I think that was the point, too. You know, the point of playing him was to be like, how's this going to work? And when Mike Trout came back, I saw him. He gave a little scrum in Oakland and he was talking about his health. And he said he found a pregame routine

that keeps him loose and keeps his back loose and I think that was the that was the point of playing down the stretch was to see how that interacts because he said the biggest thing he wants to do is stay on the field going next year so basically it was a dry run for how do we keep you on the field with this condition? Of course, I read that same email from the same plucky reader, plucky listener and panicked. And just read all I just like read, you know, so funny with like rose colored glasses or, you know, I don't know what the opposite of rose-colored glasses is. Panic-colored glasses. I just read it through that like, Oh, God. I see him being shut down.

Then he comes back and he's dealing with this. This is going to be terrible. That's when I traded him for Kwon, Hoskins, and some other pieces in an effort to win my league. It's an interesting league, the Pitchfork League. I did win the head-to-head portion. So maybe it was worth it. I got a flag.

I got a little, you know, one of those little flags they put in your sandwiches. I got a little flag. I got a toothpick flag. However, I lost the Roto. Ended up third in Roto. So I didn't win both the toothpick flag. However, I lost the Roto. Ended up third in Roto. So, I didn't win both the toothpick flags.

And I bet you I'm going to be ruining that one. Because now my keeper situation is like, ooh, do I keep Hoskins or Kwon? It's like, you know, there's like three or four guys where I have to kind of decide. Whereas if I'd had Trout, I'd be like, yeah, Trout, that's my final keeper. Well, you never know.

Keeper deadlines are funny. I mean, a lot of people have those coming up more like in winter. They're not right now. I have one league where I have a keeper deadline coming up this week. So there's a flurry of trade activity. And I think you can find in a keeper league especially that people have very different values compared to a redraft league. A redraft league redraft league most people are looking at one of the same four or five sets of projections and we have this sort of common

ground this is what these players are likely to do so this player versus this player is a fair swap keeper leagues especially if you're working in salaries throw a lot of that out the window and then there's also the is my team playing for now is my team playing for now? Is my team playing for the future? So I always assume that I have either like locked in on, on these keepers or I always assume that I have my guys all figured out. And then I see a couple of players that pop on the block and I, Oh, I didn't realize I could go trade for that player. I didn't think that player was going to be available. Oh, but they're 31, you know, and that, that person's like, ah,

this is too old, you know? Right. And I see it. it i'm like i'll take a year of this player that's better than the last keeper or one of the last keepers i have i'll i'll pay the extra couple bucks and not go into the auction of the draft hoping to find an ace when it's not a guarantee to find one or whatever the situation might be um but with trout i think the immediate question is just well how much is he going to fall in the early drafts? I assume he's going to be a third rounder for a while. We saw some evidence of that, even. Yeah, I think I contributed to it.

I think Zola and I took him in the third round of a 15-teamer. We had that early position, so it was kind of at that window where it felt right to take him. And it would have been fun to see how far he would have fallen. We didn't expect him to come all the way back around to us at the end of round four in a 15 team. That would have been about pick 57. I don't think he's going that far down. I think the range is probably something like 30 to 45, pretty much the entire third round right now, depending on how risk tolerant each person is. But long term, it's not just the back.

It is also the calf. He's had other stuff he's dealt with. He doesn't run anymore. But we're still talking about a player who is a clear difference maker offensively. Went on that home run binge in September. The fact that the power was still there, aside from the volume that he was playing,

that gave me a lot of confidence that he is still that player without speed. And it is interesting to think about it this way, too. He's one of three players in the history of baseball to miss 40 games and hit 40 homers. The other two were Hank Aaron and Nelson Cruz. And Nelson Cruz is the perennially undervalued, oh, that guy's too old and gave people tons of value at the end of his career. So I think, you know, once you get to the third round, you know,

like I said, the guy in my main that ended up like top three in the overall, he took Trevor Story in the third round. So you can obviously handle some injury risk in the third round. Aaron Judge went in the fourth round, you know. Mike Trout could be not necessarily round Aaron Judge went in the fourth round you know Mike Trout could be not necessarily the Aaron Judge but that kind of guy that slips too far for the injury risk I wonder if the only sort of the the one the one asterisk to this argument that I'm making is Byron Buxton because he was great and he was great when he was in and yet the injury risk

was the same as every other year. He was injured again and he did not return great value on his investment. Here's a random trivia question for you. Who has played more games since the start of 2018 between Trout and Buxton?

I was just looking at Trout's page so I know that 20 and 21 really were not good for Trout and Buxton? I was just looking at Trout's page, so I know that 20 and 21 really were not good for Trout. Yeah, but who played more games from 2018 to 2022 between Trout and Buxton? Trout. It's Trout. It's Trout by kind of a lot. Trout has

482 games over the last five seasons combined. Buxton has 307. 307 in five seasons? 307 in five seasons for Byron Buxton. I love Byron Buxton. I think he's a fantastic player.

That is the riskiest of the risky injury profiles. Trout might be C for the health grade, possibly a D plus, like a Tommy Boy D plus. But I just think the skills are still incredible. So third round,

it makes some sense. If you already have some bags with one of your first two picks or within your first two picks, I actually think you can justify taking him in that range. But we'll see. We'll see if I'm right about where he falls. Top 25 outfielders that were taken, according to the ADP sort on Fangraphs,

that didn't return double-digit value. Byron Buxton. You're going to have to pick one of these at the end for next year. Tyler O'Neill, Nick Castellanos, Chris Bryant, Eloy Jimenez, and Giancarlo Stanton.

Hmm. Hmm. I think there's two I definitely like as target now players for long-term leagues and for 2023. I like Tyler O'Neill and I like Eloy. I think I like Eloy Jimenez even more than Tyler O'Neill for just like a

long-term keeper league perspective. Who do I trust to be a good player longer? I think Eloy is the answer. I think in redraft, the price is going to be even, or am I getting a discount on one of those guys relative to the other? Who do you think is going to go earlier? In redraft between Eloy and Tyler? Yeah.

I think that Eloy Jimenez still has that prospect sheen about him a little bit more, whereas Tyler O'Neal never was regarded the same as a prospect in the strikeout rate. I would actually assume that Eloy goes ahead of Tyler O'Neal in drafts this coming season. Eloy hit 295 with 16 homers

in 84 games. That's great. That's not that far off of the numbers we were talking about for you or not. People will look at Tyler O'Neal and say, no, there's an actual problem here. Eloy was more of just a health situation. Tyler O'Neal was... And people will probably look past the fact that Tyler O'Neal

did have health issues this year. But they'll probably fixate more on the strikeout rate and say, no, there's a batting average risk here and a health risk. So I do like both. If I can only have one in a redraft league, it's probably Eloy Jimenez. My case for Tyler O'Neill is that the K rate actually improved this year around the injuries.

The walk rate also improved when plate skills improve around someone who hits the ball as hard as he does. Good things can happen. And he runs. Eloy doesn't. So I think you look at the Cardinals outfield. The Harrison Bader trade late in the season is really good for O'Neal going forward because any threat to that outfield being too crowded seems to be eased. And he probably wasn't going to be pushed out of playing time anyway he plays every day when he's healthy so we're looking at two

seasons now where he's been an efficient base dealer he's shown plenty of in-game power and now he's shown a slight improvement in plate skills right in peak age range yeah so both good give me Jimenez over O'Neill but I like those two a lot more than everybody else that you threw out there. Buxton was a part of that group. I don't know what to do with Buxton in leagues anymore. I was a Buxton optimist for the better part of the last five years.

I think I like him I like him I like him in shallow leagues with a large IL, especially if you have an unlimited IL. Then I start to like him again. If you're in a 12-team league with lots of IL slots,

then he makes sense. He's going to be great when he's in, and he's going to be on your IL. And then the replacement is going to be high. So I like him in those sort of situations. But he'd be kind of killer in an AL only, right? Where you put him in and then when you go to the wire, you're like, oh God, what is out there?

Where did Tyler O'Neal go in your... Just to finish him off, where did he go in your early NFVC draft? Great question. Need to look that up. While I'm looking that up, consider this about Buxton. 47 homers and 15 steals in the last two seasons combined. That to look that up. While I'm looking that up, consider this about Buxton. 47 homers and 15 steals in the last two seasons combined.

That's in 153 games. I know. I mean, it's there. It's gross. I think I agree with you in that I feel much better about him in leagues where it's easy to find players on the wire. I think if you take him in leagues that are deep, if you want to go to al labor and go get buxton let's just say buxton's a 20 probably a 23 to 24 dollar player you think next i would guess i think well ian khan's in the league ian likes buxton and he's probably not the only one so loaded at 20 probably yeah i think you just have to think about the rest of your outfield and the rest of your roster a little bit differently

when you take the extreme injury risk players in a format that deep. Like your UTIL has to be an outfielder. You have to take maybe a reserve that's an outfielder you think will play. Or maybe you take the reserve guy behind Buxton. You take Cave or whoever you think it is. It's kind of like if you put an injury score on every player and you added up all the injury risk on your team as long as the cumulative injury risk is below a certain level it's fine but Buxton just keeps you from taking a few medium injury risks

elsewhere because you can't afford to have that much risk you couldn't put Buxton out there with Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert as your options. Probably shouldn't do that all from the same position in an ALL league. Yeah. There's only two ways that I can go. Yeah. As for your question about Tyler O'Neal, I got so carried away, I didn't even bother answering it. I was just gesturing wildly with my hands and getting very excited.

Tyler O'Neal in the 15-team league that did Zola just a couple weeks ago was a mid-seventh round pick. That would be pick number 97. That seems very appropriate. It seems like a nice discount. What outfielders are going around there? That was after Eloy in the sixth and Teoscar Hernandez in the sixth and just before Jake McCarthy in the seventh.

I didn't think McCarthy would go that early. Jelich, Corbin Carroll, and Brian Reynolds went in the sixth, and just before Jake McCarthy in the seventh. I didn't think McCarthy would go that early. Yelich, Corbin Carroll, and Brian Reynolds went in the eighth. Okay, so that seems fair. Those are what I like. Those are those who do everything outfielders. What I like is Tyler O'Neill next to Brian Reynolds, I think, is fascinating. I think Brian Reynolds' range of outcomes is much narrower. And Tyler O'Neill's ceiling and floor are higher in mullet

yeah so it'll matter a little bit what you did before that but if you were you know and i'm mostly sort of veteran and safe for the first you know four or five rounds i could be really tempted to in the sixth round, hey, I've been veteran and safe all the way through here. I'm going to take this shot here. Yeah, that's a good range for that group of outfielders. You're built in that area.

You can look at Alec Thomas. I think I would prefer to take the risk on somebody like Tyler O'Neill than Corbin Carroll. I love Ale Alec Thomas and I think he still has a good future. But, you know, it was it was a tough beginning. And Corbin Carroll is better than Alec Thomas. But he could also, you know, he had a 27 percent strikeout rate. Like he could have a he could have a stumble next year and still be great in his career.

Whereas I'm reading between the lines on Tyler O'Neill's numbers and being like, that's all there for a massive year. We have recent proof of how good he can be against big league pitching. That helps a lot. You go back to 2021 and say, where was Tyler O'Neill in the auction calculator just a season ago? He was almost a $25 player.

He was right there next to Kyle Tucker. He was a, within a dollar of aaron judge a year ago so that's a pretty good player to target when there's going to be a discount both in short and long-term leagues i'm actually actively trying to trade for tyler o'neill right now just trying to run pitching for hitting reynolds by the way is is pretty oatmeal-y uh he went with a 93 adp last, and you're saying that in your draft just now, that sounds like around a 90 ADP.

Yeah, that's about that. He returned, and so he went back end of the top 25 in terms of ADP, and he returned the 25th to 24th best value.

He's like, you got exactly what you paid for, guy. I think with Ryan Reynolds, too, if you play in an OBP league, it gets a bump because look at what he's done in that category. I mean, he's had walk rates of 8.4% or better in each of his four seasons in the big leagues. Career is 9.8%. He's a career 281, 361, 481 hitter. He's really good.

How many players have better slash lines than that in the last four seasons? Pretty short list. Yeah. I wish he didn't call Pittsburgh home. Yeah, I mean, Pittsburgh itself isn't bad, but the team around him is still bad. But the park is not that great.

It's a little bit of a challenge. Imagine what he would do in a more hitter-friendly environment. And maybe they will trade him this offseason. It's possible. Yeah, that's true. It is a little bit friendlier to right-handers. So, you know, he gets a little boost when he bats from that side. you know, he gets a little boost when he bats from that side. You've always wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself.

You live for experience and lead by example. You want the most out of life and realize what you're looking for is already in you. This is for you. The Canadian Armed Forces. A message from the Government of Canada. So beyond that early cluster of outfielders that we've been talking a lot about today, you go down, you mentioned a few of the guys that are going to slip a little bit. This sort of was the 16 to 30 range, had a few guys really jump up.

I guess we can include Julio Rodriguez as part of that too. His final ADP ended up being 112. And there were some leagues where he went much earlier than that even. And people that were in on Rodriguez, even at the rapidly rising price during draft season, ended up being very right because now we're talking about a guy that goes in the first round of a lot of leagues it's kind of funny though if you go through this group nick castellanos i expected him to come down in homers because of course leaving cincinnati why wouldn't he he crashed harder than i expected i'd actually look at him more as a 2023 rebound candidate now it's so strange to have a player that you don't like, and you like him, you don't like him,

and you like him again. It's just constantly fluctuating based on how everybody treats him. Everyone has a price that works, you know? Yeah, so I think I'm in on Castellanos. I didn't have a lot of Chris Bryant this year. He got hurt, I think, coming off the injury and thinking about a discount for him. I'm in there.

George Springer probably slid a little bit. That late injury he had in the playoffs was pretty scary, off the injury and thinking about a discount for him i'm in there george springer probably slides a little bit that late injury he had in the playoffs pretty scary but fortunately it looks like he's going to be okay maybe loy goes in that range there are certain i haven't seen for sure we'll take a look at that uh randy or rosa reina ended up being undervalued and we've talked about some of the concerns with his propensity to chase pitches outside the strike zone. I'm curious, after a really productive season from him where he ended up

finishing as a top 10 outfielder, $25 player, how aggressively are you willing to pursue Randy Rosarena in 2023? Yeah. I ended up with a fair amount of shares just because I thought 2023. Yeah, I have, I ended up with a fair amount of shares just because I thought, you know, it may be up and down.

It can be a little bit ugly with him in terms of he's a pretty streaky guy, but he ended up almost exactly where he did before. He even stole more bases this year. And that makes me feel pretty good about him yeah you know his chase rate is still pretty high but for the amount that he chases he makes a good amount of contact i think he could he could settle in and walk more uh next year again uh but i would just buy them pencil them in for 26, 2020, pay for that, and hope you get that steals boost again. Yeah.

260, 2020, sorry. Yeah, I think that's going to push him up closer to probably where Mullins was going this draft season, inside the top 40 overall. I think he'll go up after this season. I think he's going up. 32 stolen bases. Yeah. I think he's way to 32 stolen bases. Yeah. Oh, I think he's, I think he's way, way up because of the bags.

And I think a Rose arena versus Cedric Mullins is probably the early round speed decision. People are going to be making. Yeah. In terms of big surprises that ended up top 30 outfielders. I've got Julio Rodriguez, Adolis Garcia, or is it Adolis? Adolis Garcia, Michael Harris, Stephen Kwan, Brandon Nimmo, Jeff McNeil, Anthony Santander, Taylor Ward, Ian Happ, Hunter Renfro,

Alex Verdugo, Jock Peterson, Tommy Pham, and Charlie Blackman. That's a fair amount of guys. You know, those are all top 30 by the Fangraphs auction calculator, and they all were taken after pick 150. So, you know, there's big, there's some guys that were drafted. There's some guys that were drafted. I think Garcia, Renfro, Verdugo, they were drafted. Fam and Blackman were drafted for the most part. I don't think that we can necessarily see every Michael Harris coming.

I don't think that we should necessarily invest in every Stephen Kwan type going forward. You know, there are going to be lots of other guys that come up with miniscule strikeout rates that don't play as well as he did, you know. And to be fair, something that separates him from a lot of guys with miniscule strikeout rates is he also has a really good walk rate. There's a lot of guys who have really low strikeout rates is he also has a really good walk rate there's a lot of guys who have really low strikeout rates that just swing at everything and just have that elite hit tool and have lived that way their whole lives he's a little bit more discipline plus elite strikeout rate plus steals so i think if you find that package maybe invest in it going forward but

i don't and i'm saying this as a guy who drafted steven kwan as part of why you know i won al labor i don't think that we need to like write an article about the next steven kwan's you know what i mean i think those players are very difficult to even find in full-time big league roles. A lot of those guys end up being utility players. A lot of times, guys that strike out that little, they play on the infield, and they can play multiple spots, and they're a little bit more like a David Fletcher type player. But the thing that I believe that made Stephen Kwan really good

is that he stole more bases than I expected. He was 19 for 24 as a base stealer. Do you think that's repeatable? Do you think that's something that the Guardians continue to do? Do you think that's something he continues to do? He's young enough where I'm not really, he's 25. I'm not really worried about him pumping the brakes on steals. He's a good runner.

It seems like a thing they have to do as a team to manufacture runs. And it seems like something he can do to help offset some of his limitations with in-game power. If you don't get a ton of extra base hits, you're on first base a lot, and you have the speed, great. Turn those singles into doubles. That makes all the sense in the world.

I'd be close to another 19 steal season if you told me to project Steven Kwan's stolen base total today. Cleveland third in the big leagues, and then we're going to get some changes that are very pro stolen base total today. Yeah, I mean, Cleveland third in the big leagues, and then we're going to get some changes that are very pro-stolen base next year. And my general rule is that, you know, those guys that stole more than 15 bags,

they're going to steal more next year. So I think he's going to be fine. I think the Guardians, this is part of their plan. Make a lot of contact and run around the bases. A lot of the names that you mentioned, it just came down to having clear, regular roles.

Hunter Renfro, I feel like did everything pretty well, but nothing exceptionally well. I guess you could argue that a 29-homer season with this ball was good, especially when it was in 125 games, right? He didn't max out playing time. But I look at that profile, and I think there's a lot of variance in a player like that.

We saw it in the shortened season, especially. We saw it before he really gained that sort of consistency in San Diego way back in the beginning of his career. The difference for me now, though, with Renfro versus early career Renfro is he has cut the K rate down. He's been in the lower 20% range each of the last two seasons during his time with the Red Sox and Brewers. This does look like a pretty steady profile.

And if the lineup around him gets better, either because of improvements in Milwaukee and he stays there, or he gets traded to another team that's got a better offense, the counting stats could actually tick up a little bit. He looks a bit oatmeal-y,

a bit like a metronome player where you kind of know what you're going to get. But I do think that lower K rate gives me a lot more confidence in him now than I had a few years ago. I don't know, man.

I think I'm going to continue my string of missing on him six years in a row. The problem for me is just the combination of walk rate and strikeout rate. You're right though. That's interesting that the last two years combined, he's been around 23% strikeout rate. That is much lower than I would have expected before I looked at his page. Just he is going to be a low batting average power guy. I will take him if I've kept my batting average high

and I've been doing my little steals, steal, steal, steal stuff, and I think I've gotten enough. And I did find myself a little low in power this year. So I think maybe I won't miss on Hunter Red Pro this year. Kind of swinging back into that Klon profile for a minute. Jeff McNeil. What do you do with Jeff McNeil? What do you learn from a player like this? He's shown the ability to hit for a high average in the past. It's come with a good walk rate because he walks enough to take a,

a nice boost on that before. Clearly these are skills that he owns. The, the 23 home runs we saw back in 2019. That's a, that's a great, if you're going to put a plaque in the year of the rabbit ball section at Cooperstown,

Jeff McNeil's 23 home run season might be a really nice thing to commemorate on that plaque. He doesn't steal a lot of bases, but the average is exceptional. The OBP is good and the counting stats are solid. How rosterable is a player like this in a mixed league, a typical mixed league? I mean, it's tough. I had him on good teams and sometimes struggled about whether or not to actually put him in the lineup because especially late in the season, you're like, hey, I'm looking for homers or steals, man. You know, like my batting average is set.

my batting average is set. He'd be the kind of guy that I would love to draft in a league that had traits. Because then I could use him to pump up my batting average in the first half and then sell him to someone who needed to improve their batting average. But it is a detriment to your homers and steals.

And if late in the season you're looking for homers and steals, and he didn't even season, you're looking for homers and steals, and he didn't even end up being that great and runs an RBI. Yeah. So you couldn't be like, all you'd be putting him in for is hits, really. I do think that with Kwon and McNeil

and looking forward, I would think that there is a sort of baseline power you still want to see before you invest in somebody like this uh i think they reach it and i think the real the magic number might be around 100 a 100 iso suggests to me that you can hit the ball out of the park sometimes anything under that i'm like that's like 20 great power i'm not sure i'm interested and he's done that he's had an iso over 100 every year he's been in the big leagues so he satisfies that requirement ended up

being almost a six war season for mcneil so there's the real life value that drives the playing time that ends up being good looking at the auction calculator for all hitters and just sorting by the amount of value generated by batting average, only Freddie Freeman ended up generating more value in the average category than Jeff McNeil. That list, the top guys in average, it's Freeman, Jeff McNeil, Paul Goldschmidt, Luis Arias, who's another kind of McNeil-type player, Judge Abreu, Xander Bogarts, Nathaniel Lowe, Trey Turner, Manny Machado, Joran Alvarez, and then Steven Kwan.

Those are the only 12 players in a 15-team league that earned $5 or more from their contribution in batting average alone. But McNeil was second at $8. And he was only a positive value contributor in one other category. That was in runs. He was just barely a positive value contributor

in that category. So for me, it was a little bit of a contributor in that category so for me like i was a little bit of a dummy question it wasn't like a you can't roster him in mixed leagues it's a if you roster him in mixed leagues you need to put the right types of players around him because you get excessive value in one spot and you're a little underperforming in the others you compare them pretty nicely with renfro i guess right. Right. I mean, that technique goes back to, I think one of the first times I talked about it was years ago with Todd Zola on the Rotowire pod.

And he was saying, give me DJ LeMayhew and Joey Gallo together on the same team and just mush those two players together. I don't usually play that way. I find that I end up with players like McNeil and Arias when nobody wants them, and they're good glue guys, and I end up using them more than I expect to. But when the price

goes up because they just had a good season, that's when I tend to just back off and try and find the next one if there is a next one out there. I mean, I think the obvious next one could be Nick Madrigal. But I don't know. He fails my 100 ISO test, and I just think that's a little bit meaningful. I've had major league hitting coaches tell me they just don't think he's going to make it because

you can knock the bat out of his hands, quote unquote. I don't know. It'll be fascinating to watch if you can make it work with that little power. I mean, he has a 0.4% barrel rate in 552 plate appearances. I've never seen a zero in the first part like that. Can you think of anybody else? I'm going to go to really...

Check out Victor Robles' page. Oh, shush. You be quiet. I'm going to go at least 30 played appearances last year, and I'm going to sort by K rate. Let's see. Astudio, if you got a shot. Fletcher, Arias, we've mentioned.

Will Brennan? Well, even McNeil for his career has 3.4% barrel rate. The hard hit rate's about 10 percentage points higher for McNeil for his career than it is for Nick Madrigal. Will Brennan actually doesn't strike out either.

That's interesting. I like when we make discoveries during the show. Wander Franco is part of why we love him. Because we think that you could put power together with that. That's right. That's right. What do you think?

Nico Horner. See, I do believe in Nico Horner. He's a little more like Klon where he's been running too. There's an extra thing that he already does that gives him value. I want to have him on some rosters next year. So this later group of outfielders, the non-top 100 guys based on ADP, I guess Julio was part of that.

And you mentioned what we learned from the surprises. I don't think you can take prospects in any given year. When prospects are bad, I don't think you can say, don't invest in prospects. When prospects are good, I don't think you can say, you must invest in prospects. They keep to look at players for what they can do individually. How dominant were they at each level of the minor leagues? What did they bring to the table in terms of production relative to their age? to the table in terms of production relative to their age.

I think that's, for me, that's been the best way to understand when to take those chances and when to let someone else take those chances. I don't think it's perfect. But I do think that maybe coming off of a season in which we saw a lot of players debut, many of them have success almost instantly. There is a temptation to be more aggressive with the group of players that comes up the following year. And I would say to be cautious about that, if only because I'm not sure the next group of young players hitting the big leagues in 2023 is nearly as deep as this, since we saw so many players debut. So there's that sort of concern. But also, this year's success doesn't mean next year's

success is sure to follow. It doesn't mean that it won't either, for the sake of just putting that out there. But I do think we kind of saw a special class of players come through in 2022. Yeah, I mean, Harris and Rodriguez were pretty special. In my main, I got him super late. I don't want to learn the wrong thing. I got Rodriguez again in the 26th round.

I don't want to be like, oh, that really worked for me last year. Now I'm going to take him to the 15th. The prospect of the 15th. It's still disbelief that he went that late. I't i mean i just can't believe it like i think you need i don't even know if the screenshot and tweeted or anything but i blows my mind that he was going that late so you know who could even a lot of these guys came up jackson do you think jackson shurio could come up next year? No. He's too young. Anything's possible,

right? I mean, it's just like for the outfield especially, Drew Jones is a no, James Wood is a no. Maybe we need Colton Couser. Does Colton Couser join the Orioles outfield? Curtis Meade is listed as an outfielder in some places in third base somewhere else.

He's really close. But Meade is not... I don't think Meade is... I've seen people put together big packages for Curtis Meade alone. But I don't think of him... He's definitely not in the same prospect category as Julio Rodriguez.

Not yet. Is he in the same place category as Julio Rodriguez, not yet. Is he in the same packet, you know, place where Michael Harris was? Maybe. You know, could take off. He's 22 already, though. I don't think Curtis Meade is, I think, actually, next year

in the outfield in particular does not look like a big year for prospects. If you're not counting Corbin Carroll. If we're counting guys who haven't debuted yet only, then it's a shorter list. Our friend James Anderson has the ETA tags on players on his prospect list. He's got Chorio, Kouser, Aaron Zavala in the rangers organization brennan davis who might have debuted this year if he hadn't been hurt george valera and then sal freelick another

strange player in the brewers organization with that low k rate but with freelick we've seen a little bit of power in the minors this year non-zerozero power. And we've seen speed. We've seen the Stephen Kwan-esque contributions on the base paths that at least give us that extra category to have a reason to like him for. But it's a question of how does he fit into their playing time mix, given that they traded for a story of ease, given that they, again, have Renfro and Jelic, have a couple other guys that they want to keep playing. I don't know.

I don't know how they make those pieces fit. I assume that roster is going to be one that goes through some change. Yeah, it was a disappointing year for them. I actually think that group is a decent round to be buying in the 26th round. Right? Because the magic I want to repeat is, guy who is performing in spring training that has a near ETA that might break camp with the team. Right.

So I want to look at that list and follow them along through spring training and pick somebody off that list. Because, you know, in the 26th round, you're not likely to have that guy all year. That's a very not likely player that not likely to have that guy all year that's a very not likely player that's going to stay with you all year and if if you drop them in the in the second week or the third week you know you and i think also guys that you that will you can tell a little bit about where they put them in the minor leagues if they might come back up after two or three weeks you know there's always like the two or three week one. And then there's like the six week one where prospects come up.

And then if they don't come up after that, then it's like, you know, two months. So, you know, I might take Churio if he's, you know,

looks like he's knocking the door down and then keep him two or three weeks. And if they don't bring them up, then, you know, I got to move on. And Churio's going to be 19 in March.

That seems aggressive. Honestly, James has got an ETA of this year on him? Of 2023. He got six games in AA at the end of the season, so he did reach AA. Maybe that's like a September ETA or something. That's a whole year, so anything's possible

in the range. I could ask him about that at some point. I think it's very hard in a mixed redraft league, based on what we've got right now, to use one of those spots on Choreo. I think he's more of an in-season pickup for mixed leagues. If you're in an NL only league, you want to throw him in the reserve list, one of your last reserve picks. I am not going to talk you out of that because I like to play that way, but I would not go over for a very exciting

player, but they want to make sure they get the timing right. They want to make sure he's solved all the possible big issues in the upper levels of the minor leagues before they give him a shot, given how young he is. What about some of these boring guys that jumped up?

They may not jump up in the rankings next year. I'm thinking of... I think Renfro fits here, but Santander and Taylor Ward. Maybe even a Jock Peterson, who's got to be a surprising

top 30 outfielder you know do you yeah i i think santander went in the 10th round of the early draft that i did seems about right within the 130 range ward went lower they had almost the same value same team drafted both well really they were really going for the like mid-career breakouts yeah and then joey manessis went in the late part of round nine late season pop-up guy that i don't know i get i get a real uh who's the first baseman for the... I saw he's bad, actually. He's not... I thought he would be like the Cubs.

Who was the Cubs first baseman that broke out? Frank Schwindel. Frank Schwindel. Manessis does have the low walk rate like Frank Schwindel, and he does not strike out like Frank Schwindel, but he has much better barrel batted ball quality stats than Schindel did. But I do think 30 years old, broke

out for a bad team, there's a very high likelihood of regression for him. I doubt I'll... If I'm paying 11th round prices, I doubt I'll have a lot of shares of Jack Manessis. It's one of those things. It's a great story already, and I hope I'm wrong. I think it's strange that he didn't get a shot somewhere else sooner sometimes teams miss

sometimes the whole league misses on a player but i still see you more likely it took a really really bad team for him to get a shot and there's probably some sort of reason yeah but to your point the the reasons you could argue that it's different is that it's a smaller, even smaller window of playing time for Manessis. It's only a little smaller than what Schwindel did in his debut with the Cubs last year.

Definitely a better barrel rate. Better barrel rate, better O-swing percentage, and even better target rate. Yeah, Schwindel kind of swings at everything, yeah. So maybe a little bit better on the pitch selection. I don't think there's any reason to believe the Nationals would at least give him a shot to begin the season as an everyday player again.

There's no urgency to give that spot to anybody else in the organization currently. So why not? See if you did fine. They're not even as far along as the Cubs were. Right. Like the Cubs found better people to give at bats to. Right. I don't actually see that.

Yeah. So I don't think I want to take him quite as early as he went in that early draft, but I don't think he's undraftable. I don't think he's a player you'd want to completely ignore, even though I got the same vibes you did. I was like, this is a little bit like that Frank Schwindel scenario where this guy comes up late on a bad team, had pretty good minor league numbers, but got his chance at a really old age and did some good things with it. Did enough to at least earn the opportunity for next season. Anything else you could think about here in the outfield? I mean, there were pop-up guys even beyond the prospects. That Jake McCarthy draft slot was much higher than I expected.

He was really good. How much do you trust some of these guys that are, they weren't top-level prospects, but they weren't non-prospects either because that's exactly where McCarthy was. I think he was more of an organizational top-10 list sort of guy as opposed to an overall top 100 list sort of player. I think I just pieced out on McCarthy because I saw the 2021 AA strikeout rate 29.5%. In the 2021 Major League one with 32%, I was just like, man, this guy may be able to steal a bunch of bases.

I don't know. The power is a question mark for me. And then if the batting average is a power question mark, then he fits too much in the very flawed stolen base guy category. There's still a chance he's there. The 21% strikeout rate he had this year in the big leagues is still one of the lowest strikeout rate he had this year in the big leagues is still one of the lowest strikeout rates he's ever had you know so that does give me some pause where like 13.3 swinging

strike rate you know 21 strikeout rate like do these things fully mesh um So I find myself thinking that his batting average is a little bit risky next year. And his batted ball stats do not suggest that he will hit much more than 10 to 15 homers next year. Yeah, I think you're drafting him as a speed first guy that has risk of falling into a big side platoon, depending on how competitive the team is. They've got a lot of outfielders. Yeah. The other weird thing about Jake McCarthy is 98th percentile in sprint speed, which is amazing.

So the bag should be there. The raw speed is great. I think we saw the efficiency this year, 23 for 26, plus another 11 for 4 during his time with reno i mean 30 steals with the full seasons where the plate appearances i have no problem with that whatsoever but that sprint speed marker on the savant page is the only only red truly red dot on the page he's 53rd percentile in expected batting average and everything else is

bottom half. There is a lot of blue. Yeah. If Jake McCarthy were a watery beer, he'd be cold. So that is a little bit of a concern to see all that blue ink on the slot page. Yeah.

There are some... He's also... He had 354 play appearances and still managed to be a top 50 outfielder. There are some other interesting names that snuck in the back end here.

Right around Tyler O'Neal and Byron Buxton. Seiya Suzuki is a name that pops for me. I think this guy just had his first year where he got his struggles out. When I look at an 11% bail rate, top 10 type chase rate, strikeout rate that kind of went up and down, chase rate, strikeout rate that kind of went up and down,

and power that kind of went and came back, and he had some injury, nine stolen bases. I don't want to say I'm targeting him because it always depends on what the price is, but I overall think this was a very decent rookie season from Suzuki and promise of more. Like, I think he'll have a better year next year, and even if he just did what he did this year over the full course of a season, you're talking about a 260 average with 20 homers and 12 steals. Yeah, lost some time with an injury. I think you're right about the underlying numbers. Makes a lot of good swing decisions. You can see that in the quality of his play and appearances

when you got to watch him throughout the season. I'm in. I think he was the end of round 10 in that league that I keep referencing. That's like McCarthy-esque time, right? Yeah, a little after McCarthy, a little after Manessis, a little after Santander. I'm taking Suzuki over all those guys, 100%. Yep, I'm with you. I mean, I over all those guys. A hundred percent. Yep.

I am with you. I mean, I think Suzuki versus his teammate, Ian Happ, this is actually a pretty tough toss up, but I think I would actually prefer Suzuki, even though the way Happ got there, as we talked about earlier in the year,

different path to a similar sort of overall value, you know, less swing and miss, a little less home run power compared to the previous season. similar sort of overall value. Less swing and miss, a little less home run power compared to the previous season, but right in line with his career norms in terms of his overall offensive value. That's an interesting one.

I think I might still take Hap over Suzuki just because there's that potential of putting the double-digit barrel rate together with this new strikeout rate. You know, uh, there's a potential for a career season and,

uh, um, but there's that potential in Suzuki too. And he, he had the barrel rate last year with the same strikeout rate, you know? So maybe, maybe you just want a full healthy season from Suzuki.

Whereas half has struggled with health too. So it's not necessarily that Hap is more likely to have a full season than Suzuki next year. Yeah, I think if you want to start telling yourself a story about a Cubs step forward in 2023, it's that Suzuki and Hap are both there in Hap's case and healthy and kind of putting all those skills together. I wouldn't bet against at least one of them doing it. I think there's a good chance that both can actually do it going forward. Anything else in the outfield that caught your eye? Cody Bellinger still made $10 according to the auction calculator.

I first suggested it, I want to say maybe in June or July. I'm not convinced that Cody Bellinger avoided a non-tender. Yeah. I'm also not convinced that that's not a good thing for him and that he might go somewhere with just a different voice. I mean, he's obvious. And I'm not criticizing Van Scoyock or any of the hitting coaches in LA because they're, they're really good.

Um, but they're not getting through to him or something's not working. And I just think just a new approach for him might, might there's obviously been better in him. And just looking at his chase rate alone, like there have been seasons where he was good at chase rate and then he became league average, you know, and the seasons where he was good at trace rate, he made more contact. So maybe he just decides, needs to decide what he's going to be, you know, maybe he's stuck between being a power hitter and trying to make contact. Maybe he's stuck between being a power hitter and trying to make contact.

Given all that we have seen and not knowing where he's going to play, are you in on Bellinger in the early part of draft season if he's a fringe top 200 overall sort of pick? Yeah, I'm going to buy some picks. I feel like I could be making a mistake, and I'm giving him too much credit there are people who have totally written him off and they're smart people

and I respect them but I'm just not willing to write off he's 27 he had an MVP season I'm not willing to write it off yet. It wasn't that long ago. No, it really wasn't.

Three years ago. 14 for 17 is a base deal of two. Big part of why he got that value. Counting stats were good, of course, because the offense is excellent. And Pop 19 home runs even around all those flaws. So at that price, I think I was going to. And if they let him go, people will sign up.

Like, I think even the Giants, like anybody, like, let me look at the center field depth chart as it is right now on Fangraphs. I might be screwed up because of playoffs. Teams take a chance on players

with a lot less offensive ceiling. The Rockies have Jonathan Daza slated for center. The Reds have Mike Siani slated for center. Without Buxton, the Twins have Gilberto Celestino. Wouldn't you be like, yeah, Bellinger and Buxton. Boom. All the teams in need of a center fielder would be interested for the defense alone. I think the issue for the Dodgers is just, it's not that they can't afford the price.

It's that you're talking about a guy that has struggled for the better part of three years now that they have not been able to fix. That is going to take a significant share of, of your payroll, even though they have a lot of sort of payroll discussions to, you know, they do, they want to sign trade terms,

you know, like there's, they've got some money to spend. I don't know if you can necessarily trade Bellinger because I'm not sure someone else wants to put $20 million. Prospect plus the cash. Maybe you get a small thing back and that's all you can get.

I would not be surprised if Cody Bellinger is playing somewhere else in 2023 after this very weird season. That is going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. If you'd like to give us a follow on Twitter, you can do that. Eno is at Eno Saris. I'm at Derek Van Ryper.

You can email us, ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com. If you've got a question for a future episode, anything review-related is very much in play as we continue this series here over the next few weeks. If you would like a subscription to The Athletic, they're a dollar a month for the first six months at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. We're back with you next week. I'm going to go blow my nose.

I mean, thanks for listening. Thank you.