Rates & Barrels - 2022 Third Base Review & Arizona Fall League Observations

Episode Date: November 10, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss the 2022 third base pool after Eno shares some of his observations from his annual trip to the Arizona Fall League. They examined the surprising consistency atop the position, the injuries that limited the value in the middle tier, and the handful of intriguing late options that will carry significantly higher ADP looking ahead to 2023.  Rundown 0:30 Arizona Fall League Observations 19:13 Third Base Review 26:09 Focusing on Elite Options in 2023? 33:17 Rafael Devers' Second-Half Slide 40:03 The Fallback Players Are Fine 45:40 Jose Miranda and 2022's Late Risers 56:23 Better Prospects Coming in 2023? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first six months: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Thursday, November 10th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris as we continue our positional review series. Third base will be the position we focus on today. But first, an important question for Eno. Eno, how was Arizona? How was first pitch? It was a lot of fun. I stayed hydrated and got to see some games. A first ever in the Arizona Fall League, a home run derby,

which was weird because it went up against game six of the World Series, which I was also watching. of the World Series, which I was also watching. I had a moment where I was watching an 18-year-old first base prospect for the D-backs. I believe his last name is De Los Santos, and he looks as if he's 45 in the face. And a prospect I talked to at the Fall League said he is not a baseball player. And he was hitting 117 mile per hour P missiles, you know, out of the park, second deck, you know, out of a small park. That was happening as Jordan Alvarez hit a three-run homer in that game. So a little bit of strange cognitive dissonance,

a little bit of kind of like, what's going on here? And also at a scouting event to have a home run derby, which was massively popular, more popular than any other game I had intended to, and maybe more popular than the All-Star game, really, in terms of fan attendance. In terms of scouting, not super useful, although I was hanging out with a scout that mentioned that at least you can kind of see where people's power is. So Eduardo Julian, who was a surprising entrant into the home run derby,

because he's kind of like a 20 home run guy maybe, that is all about on base. Like that dude gets on base. Anyway, Julian was in there and he was trying to hit homers and I don't think he even made it out of the first round. One of the things you could tell right away was his homers are oppo center so like he the his swing when it hits for power is the opposite field so there was a kind of for me like oh i think he might be like sort of a 15 to 18 homer hitter in the majors but maybe with a huge lbp um and you know

wasn't like a negative negative but it was like oh i see where his power is heston kirstad on the other hand who uh you know smacked the ball around in the fall league and hit the ball hard every time i saw him real nice sound off the bat which is uh one of the few scouting things I like to do. That sounded like 102 because they don't have all the StatCast numbers there. He was spraying it around in games and then showed that he can golf kind of like low inside, low pitches he can golf those out for homers so uh that's an interesting combo a guy who can kind of spray to all fields might have good plate coverage and then his power is uh sort of low low inside you know as a lefty that's interesting because sometimes you try they try to back foot you so if they're trying to back foot you with a slider and you've got low and inside power you might you might hit homers that way while i think his contact rates and his ability to spray the ball speaks well for his batting

average so um i came away really excited about heston kirstead i think uh you know two years away because of myocarditis related to covid. That's a tough situation to be in. And yet he looks, he looked, he was actually one of my favorites. Maybe my favorite overall, which is saying something because Jordan Walker was there and he was everybody else's favorite.

There was just something weird for me. And I didn't, I didn't know how to put my finger on it. The types of players I like when I'm scouting and it's definitely not my best foot forward are kind of like I've talked about it like sort of fire

fire plug fire safety fire hydrant fire hydrant you know just like there's a plug word too anyway spark plug yeah spark plug fire hydrant you know just like there's a plug word too anyway um spark plug yeah spark plug fire hydrant like like compact with like with whippy hands and like real fast bat speed i really like that combo i don't even know who who the patron saint of that is but just like when i'm watching i'm like oh i can see how fast the is, and I can see the hands look like they might be able to get to things.

So Walker is not that. Walker is a really big dude who looks, to my eye, stiff in his swing across the top, and I don't really see the hands for the variability. To me, Walker is going to strike out 26% to 28% of the time in the major leagues. I know that he gets to really good 90th percentile or max ev type stuff he definitely has uh power despite you know to my eye not having the greatest um uh bat speed i mean it's weird i think how you generate the bat speed makes different bat speeds look more you know what i mean like if you're just like a really strong guy that comes through like this, like comes through kind of stiff, then maybe the bat doesn't look as fast, but is as fast as someone who kind of whips it through.

You know what I mean? In terms of just how it appears. So I wouldn't be surprised if his bat speed is pretty good, despite what I was saying, but I do think he's kind of stiff. And it is interesting because he struck out 27% of the time at high A and 21.6 at double A, but he still had a 16.4% swing strike rate at double A. So I really see him as ending up on the higher end of that strikeout rate,

26, 27% of the time in the major leagues, maybe with a good walk rate and good power rates, but that makes him a little bit more of your traditional power threat guy with like a 250 average uh maybe a 240 average but with speed so um i don't know i i i wonder if i uh if he's like immediately jumping into like the nolan arenado like you know top five is his position type guy like there was a little bit of like, uh,

I don't, I don't know if I, I don't know if I see as like a superstar here. So that was, those are some things. And then, uh, some down,

um, down ballot, uh, observations. Matt Mervis has a really good approach. I think he's a little stiff too. Uh, but he has a really good approach.

So I think he will be that, um, you he has a really good approach. So I think he will be that, you know, two 50 hitting slugger guy. But he, he's seems really cerebral about his craft. I I'm, I'm doing a piece about taking control of your own career. And he said that when,

you know, so they had that five round draft because of covid and he was one of the people that didn't go in the first five rounds and i said well that changed the power structure like you could go to any team you wanted to they all had twenty thousand dollars for you so how did you choose the the cubs and he said he made a spreadsheet where he had the current for all the teams that were talking talking to, the current first baseman, his production, his age,

and his contract status, their minor league first baseman, and their production and age, and then also how many everyday position players

they had produced out of their system in the last 10 years or something. And I was like, well, yeah, once you put it that way, I can see how you could

exactly get to the Cubs. He was looking at Rizzo in the final year of his contract, hadn't signed was like, well, yeah, once you put it that way, I could see how you could exactly get to the Cubs. You know, he was like looking at Rizzo in the final year of his contract, hadn't signed an extension. He's going, they don't have a first base prospect. And they turned out like Wilson Contreras and Brian and Rizzo. And they turned out a bunch of, and happen.

So they, they turned out a bunch of position players. So I thought that was interesting. And then there was a couple of players there, Colt, Keith and Nick York, who are kind of the, the, position players so i thought that was interesting and then there's a couple players there colt keith and nick york who are kind of the the the body types that i like that kind of compact baseball player um with whippy hands and the ability to make contact and they're both trying to do the same thing which is take that ability to make contact and then unlock the power and

what's interesting about that is that power lives out in front of the in front of the plate so york and keith in the past have been guys who let the ball travel that helps your contact ability and you spray the ball right uh but if you want to get to that power you have to start earlier that's how you get to power out in front if you start earlier your strikeout rate goes up. And so we've both seen Nick York and Colt Keith's strikeout rate goes up. Now, Colt Keith in the Tigers organization has succeeded in unlocking the power.

Nick York has not. And so I don't know if that's going to continue, but it is an important moment in their career. And I asked Colt Keith about that, and he said, I'm trying to sit 97 if the guy throws 95. So Keith maybe doesn't have a position defensively. I think he'll be able to do third base for them. He's one of their more exciting names in the minor leagues,

and he's exactly the type of guy that scott bush will like because if he comes from the farhan school colt keith uh has tiny tiny chase rates like 18 type chase rates uh and also can put the bat in the ball and it looks like right now he can barrel it so uh if you're just looking for a bat prospect that you know is on everybody's radar and isn't you know super top top uh col Colt Keith might be an interesting guy to acquire this offseason. Yeah, I bet as more sites and more analysts update their prospect list, he's going to start appearing probably at the back end of the top 100 somewhere. I don't know, 50 to 100, somewhere in that range, depending on who saw him and what they like about him. But he was interesting to me just from a pure numbers perspective in season.

Only played 48 games, I think, during the regular season at high A. So 2023 is going to be a huge year for Colt Keith, getting that bump up to double A to see if all those skills hold against that next level of competition. But definitely interesting to learn a little more about him and Mervis being a big spreadsheet guy. That's kind of a surprise. I don't always think of young ballplayers as the guys that are going to be the most spreadsheet-oriented people on the planet.

Duke engineer or something. Nice. Okay. So he's got a plan. I like that. Anything else from the Fall League, from the conference, from the Fall Stars game? Anything else that caught your eye? Because you were my eyes, ears, and liver out there this year.

Yeah, well, I took that bullet for you. Everyone missed you. I was asking about you. And then the other thing was I was on a couple of panels for trying to decide the trends and also what's going to happen with the new rules. And it's just interesting that there's not really a consensus. I saw a simulation of a model of the new shifting rules where it might add 0.1 runs per inning.

That's a massive change in the aggregate if you're thinking about it. That's like, you know, we might jump a run per game. It's a big jump if that happens, yeah. It's a really big jump, and it puts pressure on strikeout rate. You really want to have pitchers that strike guys out. Think about the Cardinals pitching staff and how they don't strike guys rate. You really want to have pitchers that strike guys out. Think about the Cardinals

pitching staff and how they don't strike guys out. If all of a sudden you don't have the shift, maybe they are more in trouble. Then you've got also pressure on teams to have at least one lefty in the bullpen in the rotation because lefty batters as a group are going to take a bigger lefty batters as a group are going to take a bigger jump forward than righty batters because lefty batters are more affected by this shift i still don't know if it's going to be a the funny thing about fantasy is you know do we care about these huge trends as much as we care about how each particular player is going to be affected and i still don't know if there's going to be huge uh jumps but derrick cardi showed that somebody like anthony rizzo who i think uh hit 238 last year uh could

hit as high as 40 points higher i think 35 40 points higher but that's that's if you give a hundred percent of the difference to next year right you want to regress that because you don't like it does something you know he's also he's not going to be exactly the same person he was last year right so there's like the players talent is going to be changing um and then uh you know will teams find ways, like, will they start doing the left fielder plays, you know, rover and right field stuff? You know, will they start adjusting that way? So, and then there's just, for me, like, a skepticism that any one rule change will, like, make one player way better. You know what I mean? Like, it can change the game overall, but will it make one player like,

will one player play exactly the same way as last year and have a 45 point higher average next year? Like I just, there's just, I have this like weird internal skepticism. That's what's how it's going to work out. But, uh,

it could be massive changes to the game as a whole and still not be that massive for any one player. So I can't find a consensus in myself and I'm the king of Wafflers. So I'm just going to throw that back and forth. We're going to talk about it more in the preseason. And as this goes on, there's going to be more research in the fantasy space and in other spaces. We're going to talk about it all offseason and then we'll finally get to see what it looks like but if you've got an opinion on it um next year is going to be really interesting when if you act on your opinion and you and you and you and you go hard on whatever you know wherever you think it's going uh you may end up profiting for it.

Yeah, so I wonder what the most common strategies are going to be. I think there's going to be a lot of people who look at hitters who lost hits to the shift, as we talked about, geez, probably two months ago now. It's been a little while since we did that. I think that's going to be the main thing that a lot of people do on the hitting side. Seager, Olsen, Freeman, Soto. Yeah, those types of players are going to get bumps or people are going to try and punt batting average with a core of players like that and then hope that they actually do really well in batting average and then have everything else covered and that it's a crush year, a year

where you can win an overall championship if you are right about something like that and you've got a bunch of players that kind of fall into that bucket. I do think the possibility of people pushing even harder on strikeouts is kind of interesting because it wasn't necessarily something that I've seen in the early, early 2023 drafts yet. But as time passes,

as people think more and more about how next season could be different, maybe that'll be one of the corrective actions. We'll see strikeouts go at even more of a premium on the pitching side. It also runs counter to some of the newest research when it comes to pitching. If you think about it, something like Stuff Plus is trained against run value. And so there's inherently a decision being made there by the model to say, you know, we're just looking like to kind of not throw dips defensive, you know, defense independent pitching out the window, but to say maybe it's not completely right, right?

Like if you think about it, if you train your model against run value, you're saying, how do pitchers get outs, right? And you're willing to consider command, you know, locations, if you train your model against run value, you're saying, how do pitchers get outs? Right. And you're willing to consider command, you know, you know, locations. You're willing to consider run like like home run suppression, which people are like, maybe that exists. Maybe it doesn't. You're willing to consider it hit suppression, which, you know, for a long time, people think didn't exist at all. That's dips. Dips says pitchers have no control over hits.

Once the ball's in play, it's 30% of the time it's a hit, no matter what. And so stuff has been like, oh, no, but maybe there are certain pitch shapes and velocities and locations that suppress hits and pitchers that can do those things over and over again. And so you get somebody like Drew Rasmussen and Tyler Wells where you're like, I know the strikeouts aren't there, but the ERA is the run values there. They're doing something to suppress this. So that's interesting to think about, you know, with regards to now there's more pressure on strikeout rate because of shifts and the fact that stuff plus has only been trained

on 20 21 and 22 in terms of that's the that's the the training data right so that's a different time than before and now that's coming up this is going to be a different league so as soon as we can start you know putting more 2023 training data into the model to get better again but in the meantime we're kind of naked so one thing that i'm trying to do combat this is to work on creating stuff plus projections where we're projecting it out now you can sort of see a projected strikeout rate thanks to pitching plus right and um And it'll be an overall projection. So you can kind of start to make some of your own granular decisions. You can sort by projected strikeout rate

by Stuff Plus as opposed to, you know, the other models that are out there. And then you can still kind of cue close to strikeout rate, but still get benefit from Stuff Plus. Yeah, a lot of exciting stuff ahead in these next few months. And before we

start looking forward we will continue to look back and take the last few drops that we can out of the 2022 season the last few things we can learn before we move on to 2023 so let's be clear when it comes to shipping internationally can i provide trade documents electronically? Mm-hmm. The answer is FedEx. Okay. 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.

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And I was a little bit underwhelmed looking at the top end of this pool, you know, because the best players at the position mostly did what they were supposed to do. Jose Ramirez, I mean, he was exactly the player you thought and could have been even better if not for the thumb injury. Rafael Devers, Manny Machado did what you expected. I mean, there was a late second half fade that we'll talk about with Devers, but up and down through the first six or seven third basemen on the board, it's almost like they earned exactly what they were expected to one after another. It's the weirdest position because it's almost chalk, right?

It's the chalk position. There are almost no surprises. I'm picking this number because it makes my point, but if you could see the spreadsheet that DVR has made for these episodes, it's so clear. $19 earned value, right? So $19 earned value among third basemen. The only people that created $19 of value at third base

are the first seven players that were drafted and Brandon Drury. That's it. And Brandon Drury was very last. Brandon Drury was just a pure afterthought during draft season and then an early season pickup most places. But this was not the position for surprises this was not the position for sleepers this was not the position

to be like oh i'll wait on a guy it did not work out if you wake up waited on a guy you know uh josh donaldson at 168 three dollars and 70 cents value uh uh juan mancada at 159 uh you know $3.70 value. Juan Mankata at $1.59. What was it? I lost him in there. Negative value. Minus $1, yeah. Luis Urias, one of my favorite sleepers, only $3. Gio Urshela, Patrick Wisdom, Eugenio Suarez.

There were some late guys that had some strikeout issues or some power issues that weren't sexy, but you knew were going to get playing time. Those guys returned double-digit value. But do you think of them as sleepers? They were just kind of like, oh man, I missed everybody. I guess I should take this guy. or like guys you'd have in a dc because they had multiple positions you know where you're like oh george shellac can

play third and short i like that so you know there are ways to describe them but like in terms of like a true sleeper at the position that was gonna outperform his draft costs when i think of sleepers going in who who do you think of? I think of Brian Hayes, maybe Anthony Rendon in a way, like sort of a bounce-back sleeper type, and then maybe Luis Urias. And if you picked those three even, you had a poor time at third base this year.

Yeah, I think the other two, the older player that I thought was popping later in draft season as a possible rebound candidate was Eugenio Suarez, and I think that was definitely a Derek Cardy Twitter thread at one point where it was like, hey, before the shoulder injury, before the shortened season in 2020, look what he was doing year over year over year. Why are we letting this guy fall this far? He was a $15 player outside the top 200 overall in ADP,

so that ended up being good. Then if you go down to Alec Boehm, that turned out pretty good as well for as late as he went because Boehm fell quite a bit during draft season in 2022 compared to his previous levels. $15 player down there, yeah. But a lot of the other cheap players that did well also did it with pretty light power.

Gio Urshela, very light power, a lot of batting average. Boehm, not that great power. Yeah, Boehm's in that group too. Yandy Diaz, I mean, it's $11, but is it really that great? I mean, I guess it's better than some of the alternatives. But third base is also, it's kind of like getting a middle infielder who doesn't steal, right? To get a third baseman who doesn't hit for power.

Then you're like, yes, I know what the value calculator is telling me. I know the value calculator says that Gio Urshela was a fine third baseman that returned $10 of value and helped my team. But at the same time, if I'm playing in the third, I've got a power hole somewhere else I got to fill. I was trying to

think about why why this position looks this way and I think it's because it is a position where if you don't have a stud you absolutely can mix and match now and it's kind of part it's treated a little bit more like second base for teams that don't have the clear everyday player. I wonder how much that'll change with the shift because we saw that research that said the shift will put pressure on second and third defensively. So

you're fine if you're Suarez but there's some guys on here. Bobby Dahlbeck, Eduardo Escobar, you know, I don't know who has bad defense in this position I guess it's already starting to kind of move towards better defenders yeah it is for sure I think you

leak playing time when you share like this and the positions where that happens I think are positions now where you have to be a little more aggressive early on you could have survived in the middle. You could have survived with Ryan McMahon or Matt Chapman where they were going to pick 140, 150, 160 in that range.

Brian Hayes was a guy that we both liked. We both liked him for a while. I think we both had reason to believe he was going to unlock more in-game power, and it just didn't happen. It's frustrating because I think they're still going to give him another full season to figure it all out if not more i think i'll probably have shares again i mean i just love that he steals bases and and i think he'll hit for a better average going forward considering the strikeout rate and then the the raw power is still there i don't know why the barrel rate keeps going down.

It doesn't make any sense. The barrel rate keeps going down, and the max EV keeps going up. Like, what is going on? I know it's too many grounders. I get it. But his grounder rate also went down from 57% in 2021 to 49% this year. All the indicators for me are going in the right direction. Still has a good chase rate.

Still has a good contact rate. Really good good contact rate and still has good max power the only thing that's not there is the barrel rate like he's gotta unlock that andy haynes help me out man unlock this unlock this very very frustrating though because yeah the barrel rate going down in the face of other things getting better is just puzzling. You would have thought this was the year we'd start to see some improvement. So maybe you get more of a discount on Hayes relative to where he was going in 2022. That's definitely a possibility. But seeing how this played out, are you going to continue to be aggressive in the early rounds? Is getting an elite third baseman one of your core roster priorities?

Seems kind of like that's what this is screaming at me. Although I guess I would point out that there was a middle class. Muncy, Turner, LeMahieu, McMahon, and Chapman. Like it really was chalk. But you could survive in the middle class too. Because as long as you missed that anthony rendon landmine uh muncie turner lemahew mcmahon and chapman averaged basically ten dollars so that's not your 19 dollar first baseman a third baseman but it's still there is a middle class you know what i mean like it's still and hayes was just below that so um i think that i'm

a little bit more likely if i'm gonna bite uh at hayes again which i probably will uh just more likely to pick him up at ci or util or you know a second third baseman and a dc that type deal where um i'm not depending on him and it's more of like you know could you take a step forward and and help this team more than their draft costs so i'm thinking of him more as a positionless sleeper not someone where i want to put him at third base so um you know i could i could shop in in that um in that middle class again um you know i think mcmahon is fine i think chapman is fine lemay who could have a better year next year. Muncy should have a better year next year. So, you know, any one of those guys is fine. I don't necessarily have to reach for like Alex Bregman, who is clearly the worst of the top, if I think the middle class is there for me. think that I don't want to make third base the place where I'm picking late you know I want to stay out of the Bobby Dahlbeck Jonathan VR Heimer Candelario Luis Urias Nikki Lopez you know Josh

Harrison Bobby down you know that whole group you know like I don't want to I don't want to be shopping down there and Donaldson's going to be in there next year, too. So, you know, I want to get my third baseman before pick 200. That's almost a real rule. That's almost a fast rule for me. Donaldson's going to go really late. So if you want to take a chance in the D.C. Third baseman in the D.C. Yeah.

I mean, pick 400 is a possibility for him. So I think there will be some young players getting opportunities. We saw Bobby Witt Jr. added third base eligibility, so he'll at least have it for this season. He's up in the first round. There are people in that organization that think he's going to end up there long-term. In the short term, I don't really see a real defensive problem, but the fact that he split games there in his

first year and people in the organization think he's going to end up there you kind of where the smoke there's fire like he may in a keeper league it's something i think about he may not be at short for a super long time but uh he's an impact bat so i don't know how much you care so the really early 2023 adps you know jose ramirez early first round wit top 10 Jose Ramirez, early first round, Witt, top 10, Machado back at the first round. Now, he basically was a first rounder going in the second round this past season. Devers hasn't really moved at all. Austin Riley kind of backed

up 2021. I think maybe I was in a large group of people that believe this. I thought 2021 was going to be the best possible season from Austin Riley. He came out with five more homers and proved that it actually might not be his best season. He could have won more level or more seasons that are similar in quality to these last two.

Arenado's inside the top 50, and then you get this big drop. Bregman, even with what he was doing in the postseason in early drafts, has been discounted. I think he's going to start moving up because it's become increasingly clear that for the better part of the last two seasons, he wasn't healthy.

But for the later part of this one and the playoffs, he actually was, and the performance was coming back to the previously expected levels. Yeah, it's true. And, you know, Bregman and Machado both give me this, uh this an interesting vibe which is they're really good players

and Machado's going to end up top 3 in the MVP race with like these weird soft barrel rates I don't understand it here are the other players that had the same barrel rate as manny machado last year juan mancada josh donaldson and gunnar henderson uh i had to keep that was

like a low number there for gunnar but isn't that weird to you uh then again man machado had the highest hard hit rate of the group. And the highest max EV. So he is hitting the ball hard. And maybe that's not super useful. But Bregman was also, by barrel rate, not in the top 30 among third base. That's just not really his strength. That's just not what he does.

And that's sort of what Manny's like, right? Like Manny, I mean, Manny's better than Bregman, but Manny doesn't strike out and he walks and he'll steal you a few bases and he hits for enough power. And because of that strikeout rate, he's going to drive in a ton of runs and he's had better, better barrel rates in the past.

And so maybe that'll go back up. I think he's a good bet but it is funny that you know i fetishize barrel rate and i love it uh but you know you have a 30 year old uh manny and a 28 year old uh bregman with these kind of poor barrel rates relative to their production that are going to be in the top there. Does it matter to you at all? It matters some. This is where

DVR picks nits and people get upset. Is Manny going to be behind Devers for you next year? Probably not. But because Devers will be slightly cheaper, I'll probably end up with more Devers

because the difference between them is so small. This is the problem. I think when Manny Machado returns first round value and goes at first round ADPs, I go away. And when Manny Machado falls a round or even a round and a half, whatever it might be,

that's when I'm in so it just it all my interest in him yeah i was really happy to get him you know he was my second round pick in in in my main this year and you know there was a couple places where i was really happy to get him a second round when he goes in the first i'm just like no i mean i could get i see it you know i see it and maybe he returned $32 this year. Was the second best third baseman. Out of position, we just said that it doesn't run deep. And it's not like he costs you in steals.

He'll probably steal another five bases at least next year. What do you make of Devers, his second half? He's just weirdly unproductive in the second half. I think he hit 22 homers in his first 86 games and only five in his last 55. He hit.324 in the first half, dropped down to.249 in the second half. Strikeout rate, I'm looking at the WRC Plus difference too. The strikeout rate wasn't that different. He went from 18% to 19.4%, so that doesn't really answer it.

He walked more in the second half. So what happened? Was he hiding an injury? Is there something else that changed with Devers that we don't know about? I don't know why he was so good in the first half and why he fell so hard in the second half. Yeah, I'm looking at his o-swing you know i'd love to do that rolling o-swing graph on fan graphs um and uh even though he's not good at that it it improved

over the course of the season right um that's where you said he walked more in the second half you know he wasn't it wasn't because he was swinging at terrible stuff, even though he does that a lot. I look at his fly ball rate over time, and his fly ball rate was higher in the second half. One thing I was thinking about is that people talk about him as having some problem with his velo, right? He's a guy who hits secondary as well.

But I think the book on him is to kind of buzz him, you know, to buzz him with the fastball. So I'm looking right now at his production against four seamers by month last year. Four seamers over 96 miles an hour and uh he slugged on four seamers over 96 miles an hour he slugged 125 in august and 143 in september and in a related matter uh those were the two of the three months he saw the most four-seamers over 96. So I think that's a big part of what's going on. Now, wasn't there some injury, like a hand injury,

or was that the year before? Scrolling back through the updates now, because I don't remember anything being reported that kept him out for a long time. He had a hamstring injury that cost him some time in July in the very first couple days of August, but it wasn't a long injury.

He was 21 when he had a hand injury in the playoffs and stuff. Yeah, it must have been 21. Back injury, a little bit in July. Called lower back pain back in early July. He slugged 923 in May and won 167, over 1,000 in June against four-seamers over 96.

And then he just went in the tank. So, oh, let me look at where these are actually placed. So the four-seamers he saw late. Okay, they were above the zone and high and tight. at where these are actually placed. The four seamers he saw late. Okay. They were above the zone and high and tight. And tight. It was a little bit out. Let me see when he was slugging well in June.

Where did he see them? They were... Oh... That's interesting. They expanded the zone above the zone on him. That's interesting. So later when he was slugging really poor on four-seamers,

they were outside of the zone up. So when they were pitching him up, they went outside of the zone. And it looks like he was still swinging at them. That's what I see in august and september um so he's expanding the zone on pitches especially up out of the zone and it's going really poorly for him that's i mean is that does that raise the level of they've figured him out took a little time to do it i mean the book was always on him that that he was really good but he chased right that's that's a but that i've said every time i've talked about him i think oh man that's difficult you're not really getting a discount i

mean he's going early early drafts going around pick around pick 20. So it's not as though people are backing off. Yeah, tell me what the ADP is for the top four. It goes Ramirez, Witt, Machado, Devers. And Riley's right there with Devers. I think when we talked about a midseason, Riley versus Devers was something we thought could become a toss-up. So it's kind of funny to see those two next to each other. I mean, Riley versus Devers, if you had to make the decision right now,

you're drafting today for next season. Riley. You're taking Riley if the price is equal. Yeah, I think I have to as well. So I have Devers as last of that group, I think. How about Devers versus Arnauto? That's a 30-pick difference right now in terms of where they're going. That's probably a bigger difference than there should be.

Yeah, I think I would just look at at arenado and be like i'm gonna pass there is a little bit of game of chicken there right so so that's really interesting so devvers is the last of like sort of the elite group and then you've got a 30 30 pick difference to arenado and then bregman's going to be around arenado somewhere he? He'll get there. He's 35 picks behind him now, but I bet he'll close some of that gap. So you're going to look at Devers and be like, I like him. The auction calculator says I like him, but I've got this thing about,

oh man, they really kind of figured him out late last season. I'm just going to pick something else. I'm going to pick a closer here or a starter. I'm going to do something different because I think I can go get arenado and bregman you know in the next round or in you know 30 picks yeah next round because you're you had to finish your round and then whatever right so yeah i'll just take i'll just take arenado or bregman the next time we come around what if they both go then you're in the middle class then you just took a dive from Bregman to Muncy or McMahon.

Yeah, you're back to the guys that got hurt last year or have some kind of major flaw, or the younger guys who just haven't done it for very long. I mean, Gunnar Henderson. So then you have to be like, you have to not only be willing to wait for Arnott on Bregman, which I think is defensible and fine, have to not only be willing to wait for arnott on bregman which i think is defensible and fine but know that there's a risk that you are taking a third baseman around 150 that's

you're hoping will give you ten dollars value i think i'd rather have an early third baseman but i'm also not going to panic because i think there are some mid-tier players that are good enough i think when you look back at the consistency we were talking about, Matt Chapman was fine. Matt Chapman's not really going that much earlier than he did last year. Turner returned 12 bucks somehow. McMahon's cheaper. I still believe in Anthony Rendon, so yeah,

I'll wear the doofus crown on this one. He hasn't been playing. He's been hurt. I don't think he has a skill set that's going to just collapse. I think it's just a matter of staying on the field. If he stays on the field, you get him at pick 200, you're going to be really happy with that.

If he's broken all the time and he's a younger version of Josh Donaldson, well, I'm really sorry for that. But I think he's in my group of, oh, crap, I don't have a third baseman early. What combination of players am I going to get in the middle round so I think can bail me out of it? And I don't think you would, clearly you would not take Rendon as your starting third baseman without someone else who's third base eligible as part of your core.

You need to get a second one. I hope that's very clear and obvious. But then if you're looking back at last year and you come out of the draft next year with Rendon and Cabrian Hayes, and you're like, oh, looks, I got the old guy and I got the young guy, and I'll be fine. Look back at last year.

You're way behind your peers. I am the golden retriever on this show, and I thought that was a good idea. If it was a good idea last year, I'm going to try it again. I'm going to try it again at a discount. There's another interesting thing that came out of the panels I was on. Rob Silver was talking about how the NLDH created not specifically $15 $5 players but

basically the value that you would get from $15 $5 players by opening up this new roster spot so that made me think that around and then you have to think about

just how tough pitching is is around five dollars i'm not as interested in those players anymore on the offensive level i think around and around five dollars projected value i'm more likely to take the picture and then hope I can just find a $5 player. And looking back on this situation, I think going into the season, you would have projected Juan Mankata as easily a $5 player, right? And Cabrian Hayes and Josh Donaldson and Eduardo Escobar, all those guys that went between $150 and $200, you would have predicted as five dollar players um some of them ended up as five dollar players a lot of them didn't i think that's super fungible

at that point um you might as well just go down to the eugenio suarez uh geo urshela packer wisdom crowd hassan kim you know it's like uh i think and and over the course of the season those guys are bubbling up if you just held on to josh donaldson at third base all season that is rough dude getting three dollars out of your third baseman is rough especially since that cost you the chance to get a pitcher there um so that's just a just a little asterisk is that the five dollar position player has become less valuable to me because of the nldh 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. It's kind of a philosophical question. Do you find it more difficult to cut a player like Josh Donaldson, someone at least on the wrong side of 30? I realize he's even a few years older than that. But who still projects well and is still barreling the ball and isn't chasing.

Right. Are you more likely to get caught holding that player and absorbing more of that disappointing season than you are with a young player? If you take a chance on this year, it'll be someone like Josh Young around pick 200. Are you going to be quicker and more willing to cut the high ceiling young player if it's not working out? I mean,

and that's assuming you don't get the obvious cue of option to triple a, which then is clear in a mixed league drop indication. But like Bobby Dalbeck, man, I would, I would never would have held on to Bobby Dalbeck man yeah i would i there's i never would have held on to bobby dalbeck and and heimer candelario i never would have held on to him in like a nfbc situation i held on to him in some keeper situations but you know i yeah those guys

i would never have held on to i don't think i don't think i held on to urias actually i think i dropped and picked up louis urias a couple times over the course of the season you know like i was like i'm not i'm not hanging around for this you know um but uh yeah there were some leagues where i held on to josh donelson and juan macada too long um and they just make you that's why that's another reason why i think the five dollar player is a little bit of a siren song you know it's like oh five dollars of siren song. You know, it's like, oh, $5 of production. This is actual production. It's real production, except there's 15 new $5 players, you know? And they're much more fungible than you might think,

especially since projections around that spot, you just, yeah, it could be $5. It could be $0. And the projections wouldn't be necessarily that wrong. You know what I mean? Like, there's the error bars on it a five dollar projection means that he could be anywhere from zero to ten without really breaking the projection system and that means there's a lot of zeros there a few other pop-up guys from 2022 that will be much earlier picks going into 2023, Jose Miranda is a top 150 guy

now going into next season. I liked him a lot as a prospect, as a guy that really did well in the upper levels of the twin system, and it seemed like there were some opportunities for him. So I had him a few places. I didn't have him everywhere

because it wasn't crystal clear at the beginning of the season. Ended up being 15 homers in his rookie season. We saw enough homers in 2021. It was 30 between AA and AAA in 127 combined games where I can talk myself into one more level being a possibility for him. I'm curious.

Even though the max power and the barrel rates aren't amazing. Right, but we see that from other players, the position, and we kind of look past it with them. So I guess it's a question of do we trust the playing time enough for Miranda to say, yeah, let's go ahead and let's do this again. Let's get the follow-up year because there could be 20-plus homers there as he enters the season as a clear-cut starter. I think I do.

With that, it's a poor chase rate, poor walk rate, poor defensive value, not great barrel rate, so there's a lot of negatives there. However, it is a plus contact rate and probably enough power to hit 20 to 25 homers. If you think about the Twins twins i know that they've put up good offenses but i think they need to put a premium on offense you know as they are currently constructed now can they spend that career money on kare again or somebody else that's certainly possible but as they are currently constructed i need miranda at first base. I don't want Luis Rize at first base. I want Kirilov in the outfield. So I think he's fine.

I think he'll play. Especially since DH is open for them now. Miguel Sano is gone. Yeah, that helps a lot too, just in terms of having a few spots to play. Miranda and Alex Kirilov, if he's healthy, or Trevor Larnak, those guys all should have larger roles over the course of 2023. Somebody might lose out of their group considering Miranda, Kirilov, and Larnak are probably all competing for DH left field and first base.

Now you're saying, hey, there's three guys, there's three jobs, that's fine. But that assumes no more moves. And also no more moves at first base where there are guys out there. They could sign like Jose Abreu. Would that be that weird for this team? It wouldn't be. No, probably not. They've got to Jose Abreu. Would that be that weird for this team? It wouldn't be. No, probably not. They've got to figure out what they're going to do at shortstop, whether that's eventually

turn it over to Royce Lewis and just with Correa being a free agent, just saying, we're not really going to replace him with the other free agents. We're going to replace him internally. They need to spend money on pitching. He's coming off a second ACL tear, right? Yeah, so it's just hard to rely on him, at least from the start of the season.

I can't imagine he's 100% on opening day. That would be an incredible recovery. Hopefully, he could make it, but I don't think they would bank on that. That seems like a pretty risky thing to do at that position. And Polanco moving back to short is not something that most Twins fans want to hear about. No, no, they do not. I do like Josh Young, though, of the young players. I get the sense that the Rangers are going to turn that

spot over to him. We've talked about this before. If not for the foot injury and the time he's missed, he probably would have debuted a lot sooner. I think he saw so little time in the big leagues that it's difficult to even take much away from the results. I know

he struck out 38% of the time. For the brief time, he was with the Rangers this year, Eno, but we're talking about 102 plate appearances. And even the time at AAA. Yeah, even the time at AAA this year didn't look nearly as good as what he's doing at AAA a season ago when he was healthier by comparison. I'm looking a lot more at those 2021 numbers

and thinking and projecting off of that as opposed to what happened this year. You know, it'd be interesting to think about when you draft. And, you know, we talk about spring training numbers not meaning anything. But however, they're still playing baseball. And, you know, I think it's a little bit overstated how people say, oh, it's inconsistent competition. Young will probably be playing the early innings, right? Like if you've ever watched a spring training game, there's the early innings and late innings.

Young will probably be starting the early innings, so he'll probably be hitting against decent pitchers, right? And it's baseball, and it's high-level baseball still, and it's information. And one of the few things that comes out early is strikeout rate so if you want to like watch for something on young watch his strikeout rate in spring training it may seem like oh i don't care about spring training but we might get signal out of that noise if he's striking out 20 of the time in spring training i'm a lot more interested you know what

i mean that looks a lot more like the Josh Young we saw pre-injury. He's striking out 20% of the time in swing training. I'm not necessarily projecting him for 20% in the regular season, but he might beat that 28% projected strikeout rate he's got right now. And then if he beats that 28% strikeout rate, then he beats the

.237 average he's projected for by Steamer. And if he beats the.237 average he's projected for, he's a.250 hitter with 25 bombs next year and probably some stolen bases and probably in the middle third of a good lineup too yeah so that that that looks like somebody i want i like the chase rate i like the barrel rate in the short sample last year i like the minor league numbers like yeah i like him so i think if I'm in that mid-tier, he's among the players that I'm going to try and pair with someone who goes a little earlier

because I want some ceilings and some of the mid-tier guys don't necessarily have a lot of that. And by the way, the first player I thought of when you said spring training stats and not completely dismissing that, remember Cody Bellinger's spring in 2022? 18 strikeouts and 36 at-bats. The warning signs

were there, and I was more on the side of, oh, come on. He's just a little rusty, still dealing with the long-term effects of that shoulder injury. I'm sure I tried to convince myself that MVP Bellinger was just around the corner, and that was actually a pretty good red flag. There's a pretty good red flag. There's a really good piece on Ballinger and it ended up being not so much the shoulder injury as a foot injury that he had. The person who wrote that piece just got hired

by the Dodgers. I recommend looking that up. Prospects Live, Cody Ballinger. I'm a forever Cody Ballinger apologist. I will pick him three years from now when he's on his third team. The other name that I was just circling, the San Francisco Giants have a big choice to make right now.

They are looking at Evan Longoria. They can pay him $5 million, I believe, to go away or $13 million to play for them next year. Either way, I think JD Davis is an important name for them because I don't know that they're going to sign Brandon Bell. There's just something about how it ended and the fact that they're talking about wanting to get younger and how well JD Davis played when he came over

that it's possible that Evan Longoria plays third and J.D. Davis plays first for them next year um you know I think that's in the realm of possibilities but either way J.D. Davis returns zero dollars which is not negative uh and is one of these is he kind of like is he almost like Drury-esque why didn't we think of him when we were talking about Drury it's a it's a veteran who can do certain things and has opportunity he's a barreler that can play probably multiple spots in the infield if needed likely the two corners

universal DH definitely helps him no doubt about that and the question is can can the Giants get the strikeout rate closer to where it was pre 2021 because he's been above 30% going back to the start of the 2021 season. Prior to that, we saw a 24.5% back in the shortened year.

We saw a 21.4% back in 2019. It seems like it's in there, but he is going to be 30 years old in April. Or is he a guy that can hit the ball hard enough that he can strike out 30% of the time and still be valuable? I mean, last year he had a 56% hard hit rate. Easily a career best. It's got to be.

Let me see. That would be if it... Oh, my God. If he qualified for the batting title, that would have been third best in baseball behind Aaron Judge and Jordan Alvarez and ahead of Kyle Schwaber. Schwaber.aber that's pretty good that is pretty good i take that i will take that so that is enough for me to put jd davis as you know i i don't know if i'll push like you think about

i think about dcs with a player like this you know what i mean sure like is he is he like a second first baseman or is he a third first base he's right he's right in that territory probably a third i would yeah i would treat him as a third because there is still within his normal range of outcomes he is the darren rough replacement and he's more part-time player he could be a part-time player he's younger darren rough if it doesn't really fun third first baseman and i would say be careful about fun third first baseman. And I would say, be careful about your third first baseman. Do not make him a prospect. I have made my third first baseman a prospect in the past, and it has bitten me in the butt.

This is what we've been talking about, right? First base and third base, these are places where you can go into part-time play, and it can get hairy early. There's usually a guy in the organization, an older player, that can play both those spots well enough with power and ample glove.

That's sort of the way it goes. Just someone who's good enough if you are bad to take your job, even if they're not good enough to be the long-term solution. I had no use out of Llewyn Diaz as my third first baseman in DC's last year. That's tough. I would recommend

going in a different direction. I do think this is a better year for the young third baseman though. We'll count Gunnar Henderson as part of that. Josh Young's part of that. Jordan Walker even though he's going to probably move into the outfield to get that playing time because of Aronado., even though he's going to probably move into the outfield to get that playing time because of Arenado. He looks like he's going to step right out of the Arizona Fall League into playing time.

He's a third-base eligible player that we're pretty excited about that can do some things outside of the top 200 in early drafts. We'll see what happens there. Brett Beatty, I'm really interested to see if the Mets want another stop gap on the roster, a short-term bridge to possibly wait a little longer on him. But I think there's a chance he could just open up the year as the starter at third base, or at least open up the year with a large share of the job at third

base with a chance to earn the everyday role. Yeah. Especially because it's a team that frankly is a little bit bloated like financially right like they think how much more can they spend and they've got Escobar on the roster would you say he took a step back last year I mean I think at least he took a step back defensively uh you know offensively he was kind of where he was last year, but in terms of at least fan graphs, defensive value was his worst year of his career. And that,

I think passes a little bit, the eye test for me. So Escobar for me, I want to be pushing him towards, especially with the shift, with the shift this year, I feel like Eduardo Escobar, you kind of,

you know, we're putting more defensive pressure on third and second. We may want to push Escobar not necessarily into DH, but closer to roles where his defense doesn't matter as much, is what I'm saying. So if that's true, then you play Escobar at DH, and maybe start a game with him at third base or something and move him somewhere else, depending on what's going on.

And then Beatty becomes a better defensive player for you at third base, I would assume, given that Escobar's defense is falling off. So there's some moving parts. There's also, right now, McNeil is listed as playing half the time in right field ahead of Marcana. If that's true, then you can move Escobar to second and play Beatty and just play McNeil as an outfielder.

That's a possibility. Or play Beatty in the outfield. So right now, Beatty is projected at 16% of the playing time at third base by Fangraphs and 20% of the time in left field. That suggests to me that's a decent opportunity for

him to uh start start the year with him and and for me the big part of why i believe is because at double a among qualified hitters brett baity had the highest wrc plus at level this season 160 wrc plus there's a uh there's a i think there's a uh another to-do list item for you in spring training, if you can wait, is for Beatty, I think it's plate appearances. How much are they running him out there? Yeah, if he leads the Mets in plate appearances, they're trying to give him a good look. And yeah, I guess then I would then look over at results,

and I don't look over at results and say, those results are the results he's going to get in the league but if he's if they're giving him a lot of playing time and he's playing well that that just looks to me that's sort of remember julio Rodriguez it's like oh they're giving him a ton of playing time and he's playing awesome like at some point you're like uh should we just put him on the roster that way that way yeah should we just start the season with him like, should we just put him on the roster? That way. Yeah. Should we just start the season with him?

Why are we going to send him down? There was some point during the offseason, I looked at the Mariners' projections for last year, and Rodriguez was projected to be their third or fourth best hitter by the bat. I looked at him like, they want to go to the playoffs this year. They kind of need to just let him play and make sure that he's not that good. If they're, if they're going to send him down,

like prove it first because they don't have great alternatives. Steamer is up. We can do that. I'm going to do that. Same game with the Mets. It won't be as bad because the Mets have a lot of good hitters. Let me see where Beatty ranks. Third.

Third. Yes, we have a new Julio. He's not Julio Rodriguez. No, he's not. I assure you he is not. Well, that's crazy. And here's a big one. than daniel vogelbach which might be might be a bar that people have to clear right because they could trade daniel vogelbach pretty easily

i think vogelbach seems pretty fungible so if they think baby here's a player with defensive value that we can put in and maybe Escobar starts de-aging. I love that he's third. That just, that just really worked out. Didn't it? Worked out real. I didn't know that going in and it, it's bringing me a lot of joy.

It's a little surprising to me. Like I am a little skeptical of that, but it was pretty awesome. I would have guessed outside the top five. Yeah, me too. So, um um a pleasant surprise for me perhaps a slightly unpleasant surprise for mets fans but stop worrying mets fans you're a limitless budget and an owner that really wants to add and add and add yeah that's the other thing i mean you want to wait for spring training on some of these teams because you feel like you don't know what the depth chart looks like yet. It's so awful

drafting in November. I think I might not do as much this year. It's good to keep the juices flowing, but then you look back and you're like, why did I pick those people? Well, because you didn't know. I have found in the handful of very early drafts I've done that i'm a little ahead of some folks with where i'm at because i didn't stop so it tends to be a slight advantage but there are plenty of situations that we're all going in blind i think the place where i'm the weakest this early is actually allocating resources to relievers.

And even with the Pitching Plus model and having access to all that information, it's still, you could just be wrong, not because the pitcher isn't good, but because the roles didn't break the right way. Or they sign another guy. They just, the guys, you took shots in a few places and those guys ended up being the eighth inning guys that the ninth inning guy won.

Like Stuff Plus, Pitching Plus loves Joe Barlow and Scott Barlow. He likes the Barlows. He's got a thing for the Barlows. And you like Scott Barlow, and then the Royals are like, we're going to trade him. We're not going to be great this year. They've got Piccolo in there now. He's like, well, the reliever is not worth that much.

Dang it. Another Yankees middle reliever more likely yeah that's uh that's the long long-term outcome there yeah we are going to go we're going to continue this series of course over the next few weeks if you got questions for a future episode you can send those our way rates and barrels at the athletic.com is the email address. As confessed on a previous episode, yes, I reduced the inbox to zero. Clean slate here as we look ahead to 2023. You can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Riper.

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