Rates & Barrels - 2022 Second Base Review

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss the 2022 second base pool. With a steady supply of mid-round value, does it make sense to wait at the position in the future? How much rebound potential will there be across the group of second basemen that missed considerable time with injuries? Rundown 1:46 Ozzie Albies' Lost 2022 Season 6:23 DVR Confessions 15:59 Andrés Giménez: What's Next? 23:49 Mid-Round Value 32:07 Brandon Drury's Out of Nowhere Excellent Season 39:49 Vaughn Grissom's Debut 52:25 Mulligans for These Injuries? 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

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.

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Tuesday, November 1st. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris on this episode. We will discuss 2022 second baseman, taking a look back at a position that is kind of strange because there aren't that many players who are only second baseman anymore. If you're a second baseman, you probably wear a few other gloves. Same hat, but many other gloves now for current second baseman. It'd be weird if you had another hat on. Maybe you should have to wear a different hat for each position you play.

Oh, no. Don't give Mattford any idea. If you're wearing the orange hat, you can only be in the orange circle. That's where we're headed. That's definitely where we're headed. So as we've done throughout the series, we're going to kind of go tier by tier, just looking back to see where there was value, where there wasn't, in hopes of having a good plan as we move forward. Now, we've talked about a lot of these players on the shortstop review episodes. We'll try and sidestep some of the guys like Trey Turner, who we talked about in the last episode, and actually won't even be a second baseman next year, which is the other thing we're keeping an

eye out for is the players that lost eligibility at second base. Many of these players, because they're multi-position eligible, if a greater need surfer to somewhere else, that's where they played most of their games this season. The first player we should talk about, though, is one of the few young, everyday second basemen. Because a lot of the everyday second basemen, the second base only players, tend to be older. But we have Ozzy Albies, who missed a ton of time with injuries. Only played, I think, a total of 64 games in 2022. You know, he was carrying an ADP inside the top 20.

If we go back and look at what was happening back in April. So I'm just curious with a lost season, how much you would adjust your expectations, if at all, for Ozzy Alves going forward? I mean, if his draft cost goes down, I'll be interested in him again but there's a little whiff oh a little odor of ruj ned about albies in that he's not as good as his fantasy stats and i don't think that he's anywhere close to a door in terms of like risking losing playing time but i also am not sure that he's going to get back to 100 runs and 100 rbi and be necessarily the choice at the top of the order if he's going to be basically a league average bat you know what i mean i mean we've got a guy who has a career uh 322 obp but that's a

little bit weighted early in his career over the last three seasons his high is 310 and when you have Michael Harris, Ronald Acuna Jr. and Matt Olsen do you really need to put Albies in the top three and that starts costing him plate appearances and runs an RBI so long story short I will buy him you know if he's like maybe a fourth or something rounder fourth or fifth rounder i haven't like i'm not looking exactly at the numbers yet but if he drops in a few rounds that i'm interested because this position frankly is not a good one yeah in a typical year you get power and speed too right so even if you have some concerns about the obp i don't think it hurts him enough to

cost him playing time. He's still so young. He's going to be 26 in January. It costs him plate appearances relative to lineup position, but I don't think they're going to mix and match him. I think part of what makes him appealing is even if he falls in the lineup, Albies is the kind of player that could be in the

starting lineup 155 times out of 162 games. That's the sort of player that could be in the starting lineup 155 times out of 162 games. That's the sort of run he could end up with. So you could put him near max volume in terms of games played. I think the plate appearances will maybe lag behind the league leaders. But when you think about all the mixing and matching that teams do, he'll still, I think, come up pretty favorably in that regard. Because you look back, 2018, 684 played appearances. 2019, 702. 2021, 686. And like you're saying, a lot of those opportunities did come higher in the order, but I don't think he was a fixture at the beginning of

his career in the early part of the order either. I think he's weathered this a little bit at various points. So the weird thing was before he was shut down for good, the O-swing percentage for Albies, which has always been pretty high, was at 45.2%. Again, 64 games he was playing around some injuries. That is concerning. That is where I think that Odor comp

starts to make a lot of sense for me. Yeah, and there's just also this aspect of his splits. He's got a fairly mechanically different swing when it comes to the left and the right. A career split of 139 WRC plus against lefties, 94 against righties is not enough to ask if he should quit switch hitting. to ask if he should quit switch hitting. That's something I might ask of, is it Rodolfo Castro,

who has a much larger split and is a younger part of his career. We've seen somebody like Cedric Mullins quit switch hitting and have great success with it. I think Albies is far enough in and has a soft enough split that that doesn't matter, but it may mean that against righties, he's low in the order, and against righties, he's low in the order, and against lefties, he's atop the order. Still that aspect of where will his plate appearances come, and how many will he get in a full season.

But yeah, the chase rate's not great. The barrel rate is up and down. So there's some softness to it but he has a great hit tool and uh that's why you would hope for about a 270 average from him uh what 25 homers 20 steals something like that really nice especially if you get any sort of early round discount i think naturally it just happens you miss half the season guys who played closer to full seasons tend to move up into those places. Maybe it's only a round off of the ADP, but perhaps occasionally he will fall more than that.

A few confessions from me as we record on this Tuesday, just turning over a new page since it's November 1st and all. Confession number one, I nuked the inbox again. If you sent an email in to us prior to the start of October and I didn't reply to it. It was one way to get to inbox zero. I just cheated for the second time in two years. Once a year, I'm allowed to just wipe the whole slate clean. I do that because I know I'm just not going to catch up and I appreciate everybody who wrote in. So if we didn't reply to you, know that we saw the message and considered it in some way,

even if we didn't put it on the rundown or acknowledge it with some kind of response. Rates and barrels at the athletic.com. If you want to send another avalanche of emails our way, that would be wonderful. But I've got a few to get through in the next little while. Confession number two, I broke Whit Merrifield. I told people this was going to happen back during draft season for 2022. I still created $12 or $11.50 of value. It's amazing. Yeah, he did, but it was a painful $11.50. It was $11.50 that you didn't feel good about it

for most of the season. I even traded for him in a couple of leagues and that made it worse. I had my loan share. I was like, this is bad. I don't like this guy. Why did I do that? And then in midseason, I need steals. I need someone who runs and is having a bad year. Oh, everybody who has Whit Merrifield wants to trade him. Let me be the buyer in this case.

To varying degrees, it worked out okay. Still has the second base and outfield eligibility going into 2023. But this is just more of a hold your nose and say, how much of a discount would you need to be interested in this profile going forward? Because I was always nervous about him as an early round guy. And at least as a discounted mid-round player, depending on how the playing time looks like it's going to shake out,

maybe there's actually a case for him in 2023? Yeah. This is a guy that I've just, I think I've never had a share. I'm really proud of you because... I stuck to my guns. You stuck to it, yeah. You didn't cave to the pressure of we really need steals and the Royals play him every day

which finally after years of me just saying no I don't want this will the Blue Jays play him every day I don't think so but will he even be a Blue J by opening day doesn't he seem like a player that would get moved again was he just like a

was he like their burner for the playoffs a very strange acquisition for me uh okay so i'm looking at the blue jays depth chart you know espinal really fell off and he looks like a guy that you only want to play against lefties oh ms merfield's a righty too. Who would want him as an everyday player at this stage? If anyone. Somebody to re-establish his value, but then he's a free

agent. He's a free agent next year, 2024. Right. It has to be a team that wants to play the middle and thinks he's an upgrade over an empty group of second basemen right now. Would the Cubs put Whit Merrifield next to Nico Horner?

No, because they've got two middle infielders they want to play, right? They'd rather play Nick Madrigal than trade for Whit Merrifield, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me look at the team's depth chart second base. Oh, I found it. I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me look at the teams, depth chart, second base. Oh, I found it. I did it. I have an answer. Angels. Oh, yeah.

They could delude themselves into believing that it's a good idea to add Whitmerafield. Because they could also use the outfield help, and maybe he's a backup plan for Mickey Moniak in center, or Trout. Yeah, Trout shouldn't. I don't think Trout should play center.

Anyway. Yeah, he wants to, so you're going to be the one to tell him he can't play out there anymore? I think the White Sox are also an interesting place. Right now they've got Romy Gonzalez, Lurie Garcia, and Gilbert Sanchez. They fit. As their top three. I don't think the Nationals would bother.

They'd rather give Luis Garcia a development year. I don't think the Tigers would bother. The Pirates would rather see what Rodolfo Castro can do, I think. I want to see what Rodolfo Castro can do. Yeah, I think we've narrowed it down to the two teams most likely

to be interested. Oh, the Mariners will lose Adam Frazier. Slight possibility there. I don't know. Anyway, the point is, I don't like the playing time outlook if he stays in Toronto, and the list of places where I could see him getting another 600 plate appearances is short. I think we'd put that list at about two teams right now. Yeah, I'm not super into him next year.

I think that the price would have to plummet. You know? I think I'd have to be choosing between him and Enrique Hernandez or something. Am I going too far? No, because I think that's sort of the player type. Depending on your league rules, the multi-position eligible guys that you're not 100% sure will

start at one place. You could probably use for DCs, for draft and holds, but you don't necessarily want to use them every single week. I could see that. Kike, for whatever it's worth, though, if you're playing in NFPC

leagues, only has outfield eligibility because he's got 11 games at second and 10 at shortstop this year, so he loses some of the versatility in those leagues, so you've got to check your rules. You're losing some second basemen here. Ryan McMahon, you lose. Trey Turner.

CJ Abrams. Ty France Turner. C.J. Abrams. Ty France. Keston Hura. Garrett Hampson. You're losing him. So second base is a tough position, and it's only going to get worse. I think it's tougher next year. I mean, you're even losing downhill guys like Michael Chavis and Mauricio de Bon,

like depth guys. Yep, Javier Baez had second base eligibility. That's gone. He's just shortstop only now. Plus, there's a little bit of this aspect of the new rules, the new shift rules. Cameron Grove

at pitching underscore bot did a little bit of an analysis and found that second base will actually have the biggest stress on it in terms of the new shift rules and how much range you want from your second baseman. So a guy like Michael Chavis no longer being second base eligible makes sense. I don't think he'll get it back. You know, I think Ryan McMahon is a third baseman now. It'll be interesting to see what happens with Enrique Hernandez. But you may not see a lot of guys gain second base eligibility either. Right?

Because if they lost it this year, they're not allowed to gain it back in a year where range matters more. The only one I could see maybe gaining it back is like Garrett Hampson if Rodgers plays short. Where was Rodgers

playing? Let me see here. Rodgers was playing second all the time. Didn't play any short. Oh, who's the new guy that just called up ezekiel tovar he's a shortstop yeah i mean as long as he's in the big leagues i think he's their regular shortstop so hampson is the center fielder he's just the bench guy yeah they have to be well past any notion that he's an everyday player i think this is a really tough position and you know i'm really happy that my plan well not all my plans worked out mostly i had a lot of jose altuve

shares uh and that worked out and you can you can see that the olds did okay uh some of the olds in terms of like jose altuve and marcus simeon um they did okay. But there are some olds that fell off the table. Trevor Story comes to mind. Javier Baez is not one I want in the future. And then you see this Quetel Marte, Jorge Polanco, like mid-career veteran that you just thought was pretty bankable that turned in pretty rough seasons. So, you know, how many young studs that are on the rise are there in

the position any like who's not who's like who's like oh i'll take an old guy and then later i'll take this young stud that's coming up like you could do something where you take max muncy and gavin luxe i'm more of the pick one of those guys and then go fish in a different team's second base pond and try and win both playing time battles. Muncy and Urias. Something more like that makes sense to me. Treat yourself to Tim's new fudge brownie lattes

made with freshly ground espresso beans, frothy steamed or ice chilled milk and topped with marble chocolate curls. Now that's music to our ears. Available hot or iced only at Tim's. 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. Andres Jimenez. should we talk about him? He's the up-and-coming. He was, by the auction calculator, the, well, with Trey Turner, the fifth best. But going into next season, would be the fourth best second baseman. Do you think he'll be that again next year?

I think he could. I think there's really zero risk of playing time concerns i think we did see some legitimate skills growth i think i think i'm struggling the most with with andres jimenez is like how much how much of what he did is sustainable in the long run i mean mean, we saw a lower K rate. We saw a very, very slight improvement to the walk rate. I don't know if he's ever going to be an extremely patient hitter, just looking at the minor league track record. And also the chase rate's bad.

Right. There's enough hit tool. This is the ongoing debate in my mind, or one of them is, is it good hit tool, or is it bad plate skills, or is it a pretty good hit tool and mediocre? Which combination is it? And I think with the K rate going down, it's a huge step forward for him because a 25% K rate wasn't going to work for him long term. But are you buying all the power gains?

Are you buying another high teen sort of home run season from a guy that had a 6.2% barrel rate? I know he also runs, and he was very efficient as a base stealer, so you can probably put the stolen bases in the bank. Another 20 steals seems very likely. But I think it's the power that I'm the most skeptical of. Yeah, it really is.

And that power-strikeout relationship is the... has been the main sort of nexus for his career. You know, he had no power and didn't strike out. And then he found a way to tap into the power and struck out more. There is a decision-making process there because power is out front. And if you want to get to that power out front,

you have to make your decision earlier, which does lead to strikeouts. It's not as much what people say about having a launch angle swing where you can't match the planes or whatever. It's more about when do you make the decision to swing. I think that's a good sign that this year he made the decision to swing earlier, got to that power out in front,

and also cut his strikeout rate. 11 homers away, 6 at home. It's an interesting split. I wonder how that fits into the balance schedule next year. You know?

If he's going to, if things are going to balance out because you're not in the same parks and you're not facing the same pitching staffs all the time, right? You're facing every park and every pitching staff. Then maybe he's a true talent

six homer, I'd get home guy. Maybe he's a 12 homer guy. So I think my back of the my back of the back of the uh napkin projection for him is uh like 260 15 30 but that 30 because of the asterix that's mostly because of the new rules yeah and well and if everybody's running more it's not like you're getting the same as the 20 last year yeah right it's you know you're just gonna need more bags so he helps you but it's all sort of relative i think it's interesting because i look at this profile and ozzy albies has shown us more power at the big league level but i do

think that gives you an idea of where everything could go if the power holds the max exit velocity was decent it is it is power mostly to the pull side which is fine it's kind of like having a plan and executing it and taking advantage of yeah it's like jerks like you know 12 of his 14 barrels were pulled you know just when you take that shot take that shot and and pull a homer you know the very early 2023 adp has albies at pick 42 and jimenez at pick 92 so i'd rather have jimenez with a 50 pick difference if that gap closes if we're talking about them in the same tier i'd still prefer albies and it's yeah but especially um because we haven't seen a lot of albies with this ball we saw a pretty tremendous downturn in iso and you could say well it was in 269 plate appearances for albies and you wouldn't expect power to uh to stabilize that quickly but at the

same time it is a new ball a new environment uh If you prorate out what he did last year, you're talking about 16 or 17 homers. So 50 points of ADP difference for what I just did on the back of the napkin, five homers, may not be worth it. Going back to Albies again, 30 homers in 2021. At least the peak in homers didn't come in 2019. That's the power peak I'd be the most skeptical of. And we have seen flashes of the 9% bear rate. They were using some of this ball that they were using in 2022 in 2021.

Right. So unless all his homers came on like the other ball. That seems pretty unlikely. Yeah. All that is to say, I do think Jimenez is a good young player. I think there are reasons to consider him where he's going. If he stays at this ADP,

I would be surprised when we talk about 2023 second baseman, looking forward and we have more draft data from the winter. I would be surprised if Jimenez is still sitting near the back of the top 100. I think he'll get closer to pick 65, pick 70, something in that range, because the steals alone are going to be something that drive him up a little bit. And I think the more you look at the power, the more you can talk yourself into the possibility of one more level maybe being there, and that he doesn't necessarily need that to happen to return enough value to be a fifth-round pick in the 2023 season.

Where do you see Semien and Altuve going in your early draft? They are very close to each other, right around pick 42. Semien goes a little earlier because of the steals. Where he was, yeah. After that slow start, I mean, we talked about him when the season began,

and it was not good. He turned things around in a big way. I got to give him a ton of credit for that. He's a max PT guy. He will hit high in the order. God, he had the same amount of plate appearances, 724 in two straight seasons.

Right. The only thing, the best argument against a player like Marcus Simeon is that it's just very hard to stay that healthy year over year over year. It's a skill, but it's a difficult thing to do for four or five straight seasons. I may stay away from the top of this position. My evidence for that being a good strategy is there's a run here that's actually pretty impressive starting at 102. You have a rank over here. What's that rank?

That's last year's ADP report that you're looking at. Rank is the overall pick number. Rank is the overall pick number. number okay so starting at uh 102 and going down to 212 you couldn't pick a bad second baseman look at this i mean it does some of these names are not like the others and you'll you'll point them out but tommy edmund max muncy jay cronenworth chris taylor dj lemay he ran brian nickman glaber torres ty france brendan, Brendan Rogers, Colton Wong, Eduardo Escobar, Gene Segura. The average production out of that group is around $10. Now, yeah, Chris Taylor was $1. Max Muncy was $5.50. Eduardo Escobar was $7.30. John Segura was $5.50. But there are also Gleyber Torres is $17 and Ty Francis $15.

Jack Cronin was $14 and Edmunds $21 that are in there. So I know a lot of those people are going to graduate, but they can't all graduate. You know, so some of those guys are going to be there again. And I think it's a perfectly fine place to shop. Now, there are some weird fits. Like if you if Max Muncy stays around there, then you've created a bit of a batting average problem and you, and you're not getting any steals from your second baseman. So that's something that's usually you kind of want steals from your second baseman. That's a, that's a concern for Taylor and France and Rogers.

But if you have a high steals approach and you've been taking steals with all your players uh until you get into the 100 to 150 range then there's a great time to just be like yeah brennan rogers thank you you know why not oh rogers is like the bargain shelf cory seager profile where you're like up the middle yeah and steal bases but he also doesn't have the same, I don't think he has nearly the batting average floor. It's still a notch below what Seager brings, even though he gets to play in Coors. Rodgers is a strange player. I keep expecting one more level,

and it's solid, it's fine, it works as an MI. It just doesn't get you above what you paid for. I think there could be. It's not great evidence, but here's my evidence that he could have another level. above what you paid for him. I think there could be. It's not great evidence, but here's my evidence that he could have another level. 26, could improve his ground ball rate. It's a little bit high,

and he still has one or two more years of improvement there by aging curves. The O-swing has improved in every season he's been in the big leagues. The barrel rate has slowly improved, and he has a 112 max ev so the raw power is there it's a question of tapping into it a little better than he has uh and the chase rate is improving showing me that he is uh seeing the ball better at the plate and cores does give him a big boost in terms of obp and batting average. So, like, what am I saying?

I think next year he could hit 280 with 25 homers and maybe 80 to 85 runs and 80 to 85 RBI. Yeah, you do have to love the plate skills getting better, right? Because the walk rate going up and the camera going down. The straight guard got better too, yeah. Yeah, like those core skills got better. It's just such an unusual player type that you have to plan for it. To not get speed from the middle infield is always strange,

so just make sure it's taken care of. By the point where he goes, it kind of should be taken care of. He's another guy that I guess you want to look at and say, well, what's the price? He's cheaper. Brendan Rodgers is cheaper right now than he was last season in drafts, which doesn't make sense based on the skills changes. He earned $9 last year. He earned almost as much as Trevor Story. I guess what I'm trying to get at is

I thought he had an even higher ceiling than what he's showing hints of. I just tried to put on the rose-colored glasses, and I got to, what, 280, 25 homers. No steals. Here's what I was really getting at. I remember when he came through in the upper levels of the minor leagues, he was 12 for 15 as a base stealer, as a 21-year-old at AA. It's like, okay, that's efficient.

It's only 95 games. That's close to an 18 to 20 steal pace over a full season. So even if you knock him down to like 8 to 10 as a big leaguer, because we know, you don't get one to one. Yeah, why is he not stealing three to five at least or something?

He doesn't, he's never attempted a stolen base. In the big leagues? Well, he may, maybe he attempted one and someone fouled a pitch off or something, but there are zero caught stealings. Wow. Zero steals, zero caught stealings, and that's over 1,000 played appearances now in the big leagues.

I guess that number, it's still not that much big league experience. That should be the one other thing that gives you some hope. The more we talk about him, the more I kind of like the idea of taking him where he's going because at pick 250, if he's going in that range 10 bucks is great and there's a chance you get 15 to 18 but i think i've just given up on the possibility of the steals being there and i think i'm tempering the power expectations a little bit relative to you i think the ceiling's more like a 20 home run season than 25 plus but 20 in this environment if the run environment in 2023 ends up being like the run environment in 2022,

20 home runs is actually really nice. It's not the year, it's not like trick-or-treating, you know, where it's like everybody's just getting 20 home run seasons anymore. It's not like that. It's different. Yeah.

Those are way down. Getting, you know, the handfuls of chocolate bars. Yeah. A lot of Twizzlers out there. Full size. Twizzlers. Are you kidding me? People who love Twizzlers?

It's like plastic. You just chew it on plastic. It's like a straw. You like straws? You like to eat straws? I don't. I will say if I had to eat a straw, I'd rather eat a straw in California than in other places. I had to eat a straw I'd rather eat a straw in California than in other places I like my chances

a little more against the California straws but you know I just I find I think next year you know I think could be good sort of steady Eddie Betts I do just get nervous

at some age where I'm like, there's just going to be a knee injury or something. 32 for Simeon, Altuve, it's 32. It's usually where the projections get softer due to

research from Jeff Zimmerman. It's 32 to 33. It's usually where the uh-oh part of the aging curve you know like he was really good until he's 32 I feel like you could say that a lot of players so I I'm just a little bit nervous about that part and um I don't think I want to play full price for Albies so I think I'll be shopping in you know maybe have a toe in the brandon lau you know could tell like brandon lau jazz chisholm bounce back you know section maybe uh but i also just think that i may just wait until pick 100 to see what's left in second base and and uh and pick from that group i think you can get away with it.

We saw a lot of late values emerge at the position. Jimenez, we talked about earlier, he was a $21 player that you were getting outside the top 250 overall in a lot of drafts. And even if you were in a draft where someone was aggressive, pick 150, 175 was the earlier part of the range for where he was going. Jeff McNeil, we talked about him, I think,

is just a strange player type to bank on, but he ended up providing a lot of value. Somewhat similar to Luis Arias, who they both ended up around 16 bucks of value. Those player types are often available. Yeah. Josh Rojas returned a lot of value. He was going pretty late.

Ramon Urias ended up being kind of a good filler type. Wasn't necessarily someone you could trust all the time, but he was readily available. I think the other thing that was strange about this position, we talked about Tyro Estrada on the shortstop episode, and I think if John Birdie had stayed healthy all season, he might have had a shot at $18 to $20 because he was doing a lot on a per-game basis. was doing a lot on a per-game basis. Brandon Drury is one of the most out-of-nowhere relative to ADP players to come close to $20 in recent years. I mean, barely drafted even in the deepest of leagues back in April. He ended up playing enough games to qualify going forward at second, third, and first. Of course, got traded to the Padres mid-season. What do you make of Drury's season, and how viable do you think he might be going forward?

He's always been kind of a barreler. This last year was his best barrel rate season, but his career barrel rate is 7.4%, which is not something to sneeze at. That's above average. So you take a guy whose career strikeout rate is right around league average 22% and has above average

bail rate and can play at a lot of different positions and you plug him in I think he would project to be around a league average player next year which is always problematic you know because you're talking about a 30 year old league average guy maybe 1.8 win type projection you know so that's not something that the uh that the marketplace values you know and uh you know

without a position he's kind of like an all like an always position he's kind of like an always position. He's kind of shopping in the utility market. He either wants to jump on with a really good team and just be their depth or a bad team and try to get 700 plate appearances and redo what he did and get a better deal later. I kind of think at 30, like he, for example, this last season, you know, was like didn't have a deal when spring training was starting. And like was going to go, I forget where it was.

It wasn't Cincinnati. He was going to go to like the D-backs, I think. And then he got a call last minute from the Reds, and he said, sure. Because he just thought maybe there was more playing time there. So I don't know if it's going to be as bad for him this year, but I think it's going to be a thing where he's got multiple crappy offers. You know what I mean? He's going to have like, There's going to be three teams

that give him the same offer. The new collusion is it all spits out dollars per war. Our models are all the same. Yeah, exactly. Our models are all the same. You'll have three one-year $8 million

contracts that he can choose between. One of them might be to stay with the Padres. one-year, you know, $8 million contracts that he can choose between. One of them might be to stay with the Padres. I think he'll be a decent depth pick. I think it'll be hard to know without knowing exactly where he signs to know if I want to bet on it. But, you know, people put guys at second

that second base is a place where you kind of fill in sometimes. So I'm also interested. I think Brandon Drury might be okay, depending on where he ends up, but I'm also interested in the question of, like, is there a Brandon Drury next year? Can we find

a buried player that actually ends up playing a ton and doing some good things? Could it be Isaac Paredes? Could it be Zach McKinstry in a either on a new team or

not at second base, but still second base eligible? Could it be Mike Brousseau in a new team yeah i guess i mean this just it comes into falling into excessive playing time it's almost like this is the this is a player type that a good team will say we like you we want you here you're gonna get 400 plate appearances here and a bad team says you're playing every day we're just gonna move you around and we're gonna catch lightning in a bottle that's why i took the reds over the d-backs right it was

just like oh there's a spot there for me so i guess uh that's the that's the ticket it's it's about opportunity as much as about uh quality and and and how good the player is. So if the White Sox or Tigers or Angels, those three teams, if the White Sox, Tigers, or Angels sign an interesting veteran at second base, my ears perk up. I think the other part of this is if you look at the Angels,

they have that unsettled spot at second base. Luis Renjifo was fine. You could go into the season where he's a starter, but you maybe want him to be more of a utility guy. Jared Walsh had a down year at first base, and Walsh is a lefty, Drury's a righty, so maybe Brandon Drury fits really well on this Angels depth chart because they can move him around to a couple spots,

given the injury issues and concerns about Rendon staying healthy. First, second, third base are all options. Defensively, by outs above average, a couple spots given the injury issues and concerns about Rendon staying healthy first second third base are all options defensively by outs above average Brandon Drury was not a bad defender kind of a neutral defender everywhere that doesn't super line up with my eye test but it's I mean I I would have assumed negative everywhere but maybe yeah play anywhere long enough to go that direction. Yeah, I mean, Drury also seems like a Giants-type player,

right? Like, has good platoon splits, can play a lot of places. I wonder how many times the Giants can press that button. You know, at some point you're like, you have 20 of these guys. Is that enough? Never. We want 25, Drury's.

Some of them are left-handed. Yeah, you would want a few of the left-handed variety, I think. I guess to get back to your question, can you find a player like this? The thing that I think Brandon Drury did really well in very limited time in the big leagues in 2021

was we saw the spike in hard hit rate, a 46.8% hard hit rate. The barrel rate was kind of in line with career norms up to that point, but we saw this spike in just batted balls over 95 plus. So maybe you find someone who's been a part-time player that just hits the ball really hard and you make an adjustment or you give them more time and kind of see what happens. So I'm filtering the leaderboard right now at Savant down to 25 batted ball events and trying to find some surprises. David Bode. David Bode always pops in StatCast. It's just to let him play somewhere. I've had David Bie shares on my DCs

for like two or three years. It hasn't quite worked out for me yet. Let's do it again. Yeah, I mean, it might not be at this position too. That's the thing. It may not always be the same spot. But he beats second base eligible, right? I think Bodie could be. He was hurt so much

he may have lost some eligibility this year because he didn't play enough. Oh yeah, Bodie's number one. That's great. I love it. Zach Short, if you have six events. But he's the guy who has like a 40% strikeout rate, right? Yeah.

Jonathan Aranda, but that's a different... Jonathan Aranda is actually someone who could be an interesting young prospect type. And I guess Nolan Gorman. He's on prospect. Yeah, yeah, he's on prospect. Those are kind of prospect types. The other player that we should talk about

from a prospect perspective is Von Grissom. Because if Dansby Swanson leaves, I think they let him play shortstop because Albies plays second base. But I think Grissom has the second base eligibility because of Albies' absence. So they really kind of bailed on him in front of the postseason, which was surprising, given that the alternative was Orlando Arcia. That was sad in some ways. Yeah, I wonder if there was an element of being figured out.

Let me look at his O-swing. No, he wasn't chasing more. He does chase a fair amount, though. So maybe they just didn't think he would give them the very best at-bats in the postseason. For example, his strikeout rate rate the rolling strikeout rate as the season ended was 30 so i know that's not i don't think that's his true talent i mean if you look at his minor league levels he made a lot of contact looks like a premium hit to a guy over the course of season he had a 22 strikeout rate and that that would be a reasonable

expectation going forward but i actually think he might be a reasonable expectation going forward, but I actually think he might be able to cut that K rate, but maybe they just didn't think it was going to happen right now in the Crucible, you know. And they just wanted to have more dependable ABs. But I think Grissom could hit 280 with

I don't know, something like 18 homers and 25 steals. I mean, I think he's going to be really good. I know that the chase rate is higher than people might be surprised to look at his chase rate and see me like him, but we're talking about a young player. The chase rate can get better,

and then young players can succeed with chase rates. I get more upset about chase rates when they turn 28 and 29 30 you know uh because that's when it really starts to fall apart based on on chase rates so you just look at heavier bias as an example but in the in when they're young i don't care as much about it also his swing strike rate's really great it's really good actually uh so i could see him improving that strikeout rate um and the power you know the max ev wasn't amazing but the barrel rate was above average so i see enough power there and i think i'm just reading the tea leaves i think they're gonna let dansby go you know i

think they could they've extended everybody around him right like they could have extended dansby you know they're letting him go. Remember, they let Freeman go. Same deal. They could have extended these guys. They extended all the young guys, and they let Dansby go. Yeah, it's amazing. We've talked about Michael Harris a lot on the pod, and Grissom spent even less time at AA than Harris did.

98 plate appearances before they promoted him to the big leagues i imagine the adjustment something they were seeing on the micro level is a big part of why they made that last minute switch but it's just like come on your your fallback option is not is not a guy that you really feel that good about just let the young guy get the experience i don't think that's going to break you i think they they would, if they did anyway. If they did give him the opportunity to play every day, the power-speed combo, that alone, I think makes him fine in the 150 to 200 range. There's just a lot of uncertainty right now about what happens. If Dansby leaves, is there a short-term stopgap they can get? Is there an equivalent to this offseason's Carlos Correa

that they could get on a shorter deal with lockouts? Block him for a year. Just kind of to give themselves a little bit of protection, to send them back to the upper levels of the minors, make sure everything is good to go, and then they can bring him back up again in 2024? That's the only thing that i'd be a little bit worried about given where they're at competing even though they just gave him that

opportunity in the second half of this season yeah i mean i guess there's like a jose iglesias see i wouldn't i wouldn't send grissom down like i if that's your best option i would play grissom in the beginning of the season see see what happens, and then figure out how you're going to solve the problem in the season. Yeah, you get that player later if the young player doesn't handle the opportunity. That's how I would

want to do it. And the track record in Atlanta is they trust their young guys I think Von Grissom is the opening shortstop I just do I mean doesn't that track with all the rest of their guys I guess Harris was Harris Harris wasn't

really an opening day guy nope he wasn't he was an early season call up and I think many of us expected him to go back down if he struggled but they but shortstop is also a place where you, you can put a guy in the nine hole, you know, in your lineup and you say,

Hey, we're going to, we love you. And you're going to move up in this order as you get better and better. And we think you're going to be a superstar for us, but we would just, we want you to pick it at short, right?

Pick it at short and, and let the, and let the offense develop. I think you can do that at short. And if you look at it, shortstop is a young man's game. Uh, there are very few sort of past 30 year old shortstops and Dancy Swanson's arm strength is the worst rated arm strength among the short stops that are available. So, you know, I think, and people say, well, how much does that matter? I don't know. There are a ton of bang bang plays at short. Just watch a game. You know, there's a ton of bang bang plays at first base. And I think a little bit of arm strength makes a lot of big difference. We talked about range too. It can make a difference in where you can play so like are you really gonna pick up elvis andrews and put him there over over ron grissom i say no you might pick up a shortstop uh a shortstop a player that can play shortstop to be depth but arcia can play some shortstop right he used to be able to i don't know if he still

can play it well uh the concern i would have with Grissom at shortstop based on this conversation is he's 10th percentile in arm strength himself. There might be some questions about whether or not he's a second baseman or a shortstop long term. That is an interesting find. Thank you for that. You have yucked my yum a little. I'm very sorry. I'm still excited about Von Grissom. Arguing with myself now, if you played Dansby Swanson at shortstop

with 15th percentile arm strength, do you care that much about arm strength? Yeah, maybe. And there goes the arm of my chair again. Thanks, Super Glue. 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.

is already in you. This is for you. The Canadian Armed Forces. A message from the Government of Canada. There's a... I'm going to be talking about this in more in detail this weekend at First Pitch Arizona, so I don't want to give it all away,

but the balance schedule is going to do some weird stuff to player evaluation. We're going to have a lot of little small arrows pointing in different directions. So I think the overall play is trust projections and reevaluate after next season if you have to. Because, you know, it'll be really hard to like parse every little small arrow will all the guys who steal 20 still 27 but the guys who steal 12 will they still 15 and you know what i mean like but oh but now and this is the one that people

aren't talking about so much the balanced schedule so tyra estrada got a lot of playing time in colorado in fact i think he got the most plate appearances by a non-rocky in colorado he had 68 plate appearances a tenth of his plate appearances were in colorado he had a 688 slugging in colorado oh that's not good because he slugged 402 overall. Yes. And I, in fact, I have it broken down here. Let me see here. So 588 slugging in Colorado, 39 plate. There's actually

names that are worse. He's not number one. I'll leave those names that are worse for people attending first pitch. But with Tyra Strada, because we're on the position 39 plate appearances, they're five 88 slugging three 85, everybody everywhere else is five 88 slugging in cores changes three 85 to a four Oh two overall. So he's more like a true talent three 85 slugging guy.

Yeah, but he runs. No, I don't want to be the one that sits here and talks anybody into paying full price here. But that's what you just did there. That's what I'm talking about. There's going to be a little down arrow on Tyra Estrada

because he's not in Coors as much. There's going to be a little up arrow because he runs. Maybe just trust the projections. And the projections, I think, are going to catch on to what you're getting at with him. I think the funny thing with Tyro Estrada, this is like the reverse of Brendan Rodgers. Brendan Rodgers runs in the upper levels of the minor leagues.

We expect him to run as a big leaguer. Tyro Estrada went six for 10 as a base dealer at AAA in 2021, had 52 games in the big leagues, stole one base a season ago, and then rips off 21 steals in 27 attempts this year. Because, of course. And if you go back through his track record, the best stolen base season he had, at least for a time and a level,

was all the way back in low A. He was 11 for 14 in 35 games. There were some indications at that age in 2016, maybe someday he'd steal a lot of bases, but just the lack of opportunities, even as he moved through the Yankees system and eventually spent a little time at Sacramento with the Giants, that's a weird arc to a 20-steal season. now are very mathed out where it's all about the numbers of the pop time uh the pitcher's time to home um and their pitch mix and i think you know i think they've mathed it out so heavily that maybe the go don't go toggle is handled for you better by the coaching staff in the major league

level you know maybe in the minor leagues they're a little bit more like yeah you get the green light if you want to you know guys are like well no i'm gonna get hurt i just want to get to the big leagues so yeah yeah in those situations at least all right and and then you'll see some guys who they're like yeah you have the green light if you want and they're in low a and they want to get on a prospect list and they'll just they'll like steal 40 out of 65 attempts and you're just like what am i supposed to do with that you're probably not going to steal that many bases in the big leagues if you're going to keep being that successful i'll use more sound drops in the near future and you'll know it's me trying to get on prospect lists for podcasters

when the production quality of the show goes up you'll know that's the reason why trying to be noticed by the scouts sound drops the stolen bases of podcasting unnecessary sound drops just littered rates and barrels it used to be a nice conversation between two people and now it's just utter chaos with out of context jokes and stupid sounds that don't make any sense. You know, free agency is not a place to go get a middle infield, which is why it's a little rough in places like San Francisco because I just put up the best free agent second base and short stops,

and there are a grand total of six of them that put up more than one win last year and of those six only one is below 30 and that's danzy swanson so it's a tough place to go shop even though you have these four guys you know swanson turnerarts, Bogarts is not listed here because he hasn't officially declined the option yet. Bogarts, Turner, Swanson, and Correa, how many of them will be shortstops in three years, two years? agency at a normal age you tend to lose that ability by the end of a long long-term deal other injuries real quick kind of simple question mulligan or not for these players i think you mentioned brandon lau in passing i'm intrigued are you in for 2023 on brandon lau i am it was it was a poor season and i know he has some weird splits and a really soft batting average where it could be anywhere from 220 to 270. But I think the power is real.

The max EV was still there. The barrel rate wasn't, but I chalked that up to at least some to injury. So I like to see that he had the best max ev that he's had in the last three years uh even while he struggled with uh such a poor season so i'm gonna buy brandon lau next year and you know it's not uh a 31 or 32 year old uh trying to come off injury it's a 28 year old and i think that's significant. Going even younger for injured players, Jazz Chisholm, whose ADP in early drafts is already up from where it was last year.

Do you see enough signs of growth to buy in, and do you trust that the injury he had will be completely gone going into the next season? I think that's a weird thing to happen, is to miss that much time and your ADP go up. But I guess the real uh, you know, the, the, the real thing that we were worried about were the kind of the plate skills for him. And he cut the strikeout rate, uh, in the, in the half season that he did and the power,

I guess there's been sort of up and down, uh, aspect to his power and he had a 17% barrel rate last year. So, uh, believe it and uh i absolutely have him uh circled as one of the few guys that i might uh you know jump out before pick 100 yeah had the uh had the eligibility at both spots and is now just the second base only player so i guess he'd kind of fit that other description of who's the exciting everyday young second base only player. Well, Jazz Chisholm has become that guy. I know you like Jonathan India as a really well balanced player going into this season. It seemed like every possible injury happened to him.

We talked about Trevor Story on the last episode where it was like a mix of bad luck and chronic stuff. And you just never seem to get healthy. You're going to get a uh you're gonna get a discount at least early in draft season on india i can't imagine there's anyone there to push him for playing time so this one seems like a pretty easy right off 2022 and take the discount for 2023 yeah i may put india and jazz in a bucket and uh take the guy who falls to me i know the jazz is better and more exciting um but there is an injury concern there and if that means i end up with india then i just have to be careful because i don't like the

soft tissue injuries you know i like that his max ev was even better actually than 2021 uh so i think the raw power was still there but i don't like that a player who stole 12 bases in 2021 only stole three in 2022 and had soft tissue hamstring injuries. I don't like that at all. So I have, there's another way of saying I have no idea how many bases

you'll steal next year. Like I have no idea for a lot of players, but this one is like a big red circle. Like no idea. He lot of players, but this one is like a big red circle. Like, no idea. He could steal anywhere from, like, literally he could steal anywhere from 0 to like 25 next year. Don't you think? Zero is the hamstring was really hurt and it's still a little bit hurt and he doesn't want to test it and he just doesn't steal bases. Or maybe make it like 3 again, you know?

25 is the hamstring was hurt, but he fixed it. He comes back, and the rules are great, and he just runs. 25's a lot. Even with the new rules, I mean, I guess I thought his previous ceiling was more like 15. Three to 20, then. Three to 20. 15? 3 to 20 then. 3 to 20.

Ugh. That's a rough thing to kind of put in your calculator and gin up a value for. I'd buy in more for like 7 to 8 and if you get a lot more than that, terrific. You're getting him because he can be a positive contributor in all five categories. I think that's the main appeal.

I think I still see that. Look at that. The 21% strikeout rate, 21.8% strikeout rate, that's actually above average. The 8.6% swinging strike rate suggests that the strikeout rate could actually go lower. His chase rate is good. His walk rate wasn't great, but it was a bit of a lost season. I could see his walk rate being more like 9%, 10% again next year. That's what it was every year in the minor leagues. So good plate skills, mostly an above average runner. 9-10% again next year. That's what it was every year in the minor leagues.

Good plate skills. Mostly an above average runner. The barrel rate was really good in 21 and the max EV was pretty good in both years. I see a pretty complete player still. Last one because I have a temperamental golden doodle suddenly standing

behind me looking like she needs something. Jorge Polanco. Knee injury this year cost him a mental golden doodle suddenly standing behind me looking like she needs something uh jorge palanco knee injury this year cost him a lot of time played i think 109 games am i doing the math right on the fly 104 looks like based on the actual counter must have moved around a little bit uh still hit 16 homers stole a handful of bases but the average dropped i just don't know how many games he played where he was completely healthy. So there's that to sort of bake in here too. And kind of in between the age where you really worry about injuries

and being young, right? Yeah, he's not young, but he's not old. And is it an old 29? No, it's a young 29 at least. Yeah, and then there's some eligibility questions, given that Carlos Correa may leave town and Royce Lewis is coming back from yet another ACL tear. There is not necessarily an obvious shortstop replacement, and nobody in Minnesota wants Jorge Polanco to play short. I don't think, because they have some PTSD from when it happened before.

So I don't know what's happening there, but playing time should be there. He's still, you know, as bad as some aspects of his last season were, he had a 119 WRC+. You know, so he's going to be in the lineup. you know so he's gonna be in the lineup um and i know the power went down at the same time that the the ball changed but the max v max ev went up and the barrel rates stay the same and if you just got if you just even if you just pro rate out what he did to 600 plate appearances you're talking about 20 homers and 5 steals. So I think he's a good deep league

by-low. I think he's a solid MI even for a 12-teamer because I don't think the playing time is really in any danger at all. I think the health track record going back to 2019 was actually really good prior to this season, so I want to give him the benefit of the doubt here. I think

you're right. Hitting on the barrel rate, it's still above 10% this year, even in a year where a lot of things went wrong. Definitely in on Jorge Polanco. I think, as you can tell, there's a lot of values that fell into the range we were talking about earlier. That run of pick 100 to pick 200, all these guys that, for the most most part didn't crater this year. Now you've got players that were going in the 50 to 100 range this season falling down into the 100 to 200 range. What are your ADPs for Polanco in India right now? India 159, Polanco 140.

In on both if that's the price, for sure. I love it, especially if you have Brandon Rodgers as a fallback plan. I love that group. I think I'll be shopping there, to be honest. Brandon Lau and Jazz Chisholm

are... What are they going at? They're going up higher. Chisholm is top 50. Lau is actually in the same range as Polancoanca 147 so you're getting a steep discount on all palanca will be a tough one for me he's not exactly the type of player that i love but he is young and if he had a full season you're talking about a guy who could go 30 30 next year so you know it'll be that'll be touch and go for me.

Like, I think Chisholm, Simeon Altuve, that'll, like, I'll be looking at them, you know, as. I bet Jazz is the kind of player, if he's really healthy in the spring, he vaults up. He could be one of those guys that gets into, like, the round two range all of a sudden. At the very end of draft season in the high stakes market, he's the kind of guy that just, I like him. He's playing really well. He's got all the tools he could be. And then, then the value's gone.

It's like, well, you just crushed it. You took the, you took the possibility of having this guy that returns that kind of value from 20 to 30 picks later. And you, you kind of put the expectation right on him by taking him that early.

Yeah. I guess I, I, I'm reading between the lines and I, I like him maybe where he is now, especially in like early draft season, DC draft season. If you're drafting now,

if you're looking for, you know, an off-season keeper league target, I think, you know, Chisholm now makes sense to get him before the hype and not after the hype. But I will, I think just generally, I'll have a difficult time now makes sense to get them before the hype and not after the hype. But I think just generally I'll have a difficult time putting all my money down at the price it'll take for Simeon Altuve and Jazz.

And I think especially with Lau falling into that 100s group, if I have the choice later of Lau, India, Polanco, choice later of lao india uh palanco you know even rogers like i think i feel like i can uh get better bang for my buck later on at the second base position yeah that's the sense i'm getting as well just looking at how things are shifting from 2022 and taking the early early look at 2023 we are going to. Hazel is going to get a chance to go outside, so have no fear. If you've got a question for us for a future episode, ratesandbarrels

at theathletic.com is the email address. Again, I apologize for going back to inbox zero, but it was necessary because it wasn't going to be done the right way. I wasn't going to dig out of that hole. On Twitter, you can find Eno at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Riper. We're going to record a little bit later in the week next week.

I've got some time off coming up. If you're going to first pitch, enjoy the trip. It's always a blast. It's going to be fun. Eno will be there. I will not. Bring in some stuff plus beers.

Yes. Oh, that's awesome. It was really good. I had mine and it was delicious. So highly recommend, but have safe travels if you're going. And was really good. I had mine. It was delicious. So highly recommend. But have safe travels if you're going. And we are back with you next week.

Thanks for listening. Thank you.