Rates & Barrels - 2023 Rookies to Target: Pitchers Edition

Episode Date: February 28, 2023

Which rookies should you target in your 2023 drafts? Eno and Welsh breakdown all the pitchers, from the guys who have a locked down job to speculative adds. Rundown 4:13 - Grayson Rodriguez 13:01 - Hunter Brown 18:45 - Kodai Senga 26:29 - Cade Cavalli 34:00 - Andrew Painter 40:42 - Hayden Wesneski and Ken Waldichuk 44:41 - Brandon Pfaady, Ryne Nelson and Drey Jameson 51:00 - Ricky Tiedemann and other speculations Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Welsh on Twitter: @isitthewelsh e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. This is Rates and Barrels. Hello, friends. I'm the Welsh, Chris Welsh. That is Eno Sars. This is a podcast about baseball. And this Tuesday edition, we talk about prospects and we talk about dynasty. I think DVR has called it Project Prospect, which I very much like. And today we are talking about 2023 rookies to target. This is the pitcher edition.

And, you know, you and I could not even stop adding pitchers to this list. I don't know how we're going to get to all of these players, which we're going to be talking about a ton of these pitchers. But this is like a little bit your wheelhouse, my friend. I guess I have a real hard time actually without the major league data. And there is a trend, a little sort of mini trend in baseball where it usually takes till about 24, 25 years old now in order for a starting pitcher to really get established in this league. And so it's like, I think most teams have gotten this memo where they're kind of slow walking their starting pitchers and they're doing these, they're either doing the Rays and

Orioles method where they come in and they throw 80 pitches and, you know, they're coming out in the fourth or, you know, there's some that still have the kind of coming up in the bullpen will keep you in like two or three inning stints in the bullpen and use you that way. So there's a lot of obstacles, I think, for the true rookie, for someone who hasn't seen any time in the big leagues before to come up and be a starter in the big leagues. So I think you'll see that most of these guys have had either a taste or maybe my recommendation is to fade them in redrafts just because we don't have that movement data.

We aren't sure about the shapes of their pitches necessarily. And their opportunity may be limited. It may be spot starts. It may be, you know, it's kind of rare that any team, even a non-contending team, says, hey, rookie, you've never pitched in the big leagues. You get 25 starts this year. A lot of these pitchers we've seen in the past, teams will take their elite starting pitchers and they'll actually put them in a relief role for the season. They'll just kind of minimize. They'll get some activity out of them.

They'll get 60 or 70 innings and they'll put them over one inning or maybe stretch them to two or maybe there's a spot start here and there. But I believe, not like the Chris Sale thing and Garrett Crochet with the White Sox recently. That was kind of the thought until he just continuously got hurt. Michael Kopech played the same thing. That's a way to develop. I'm actually with you. I'm a pretty strong fade of rookie pitchers overall in their first season. It's not something I'm really looking at, though I will say there is one pitcher on this list that accrued like 160 plus

innings in the minor leagues last year. So if there was one, you could maybe, I don't know, there's a couple of names on this that are, that are like a little bit more exciting than average. And then of course there's a couple of names on this list that aren't really true rookies. Uh, so we'll, we'll get to those. Uh, a hundred percent. Yeah. There's a lot of interesting names in here. I do like on this. Yeah. We've kind of got three camps that we're looking at here.

We're talking about guys that have a gig. So those are kind of your assurances if you're going to jump into your drafts. There's question marks of actually breaking camp. And then there are potential options. Are they options this year type of players or at what point? So these are three

different camps. Hopefully we can have data here and there to be able to reference and we'll see who Eno likes. I do want to remind you guys, the 2023 Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit is available at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels slash rates and barrels. $2 a month you can get locked in and you guys can have access to that. Pitching plus projections. My dynasty is up there. And you know, like all the incredible crazy articles that are out there.

So go and check it out today at athletic.com slash rates in barrels so let's just jump into it and actually i wanted to ask you this question but i didn't want to lose ourselves here pitchers that have got a gig the highest adp according to fantasy pros um i'm using i'm going to do this again and we can reference nfbc of course this is an aggregate ADP of all the big major sites the number one pitching prospect is not like the hitting prospects here you know we have two hitting prospects that are already deep inside the top 100 if we're being honest with ourselves and a gig was fully guaranteed and given to a guy like Jordan Walker I really think he would push the top 100 if they just said he's our guy. So that's that.

It's different when it's treated with starting pitchers. Grayson Rodriguez is the number one guy, and they have all but said that he is going to be locked into a rotation spot this year. I think we have question marks of what it's going to be, but I wanted to flip it to kind of what you were saying, where you're saying fade these guys. But how do you deal with these players that don't have a lot of track record and data especially when you're talking about your pitching plus projections that's one that you actually off air we're talking about how very high grayson rodriguez actually kind of jumps out at but how are you dealing with like lack of long-term data with

a pitcher that's going to break camp and them also kind of almost like not breaking your system but you're like holy crap i gotta really get this guy up there. So let's talk about Grayson Rodriguez. Yeah, he's actually pretty rare because I do have minor league data on him and it's the tiniest of samples, but anybody who's been following long knows that Stuff Plus is pretty useful in tiny samples. And what we've got is two starts in AAA where he had the best Stuff Plus in all of AAA among starters, a 147 Stuff Plus, which is just ridiculous. But there is a translation.

If anybody is looking at the minor league numbers on the Google doc, the translation is about minus 10. So you want to take 10 points of stuff plus off of that. It's still 135, and that's like what Spencer Strider was. So, yeah, he's going to be good, I think. And our system that projects, you know, BABIP and strikeout rate and barrel rate and everything for pitchers allowed ppera uh put them at a three even uh with a with i think a 29 strikeout rate so

29 wow yeah everything looks uh fairly ridiculous for contreras and so i got all excited for grayson rodriguez sorry um and oh so I was talking about Rowan Z Contreras there oh that's all true yeah let's see let's see how does it translate let's see if it's even better I mean Rowan you just might have sold everyone on Rowan Z yeah I just that's funny Grayson Rodriguez uh was the number five starter it went went Roenze, D.L. Hall, Blake Snell, Reed Detmers, and Grayson Rodriguez. I think that's actually kind of cool to kind of give you a sense of where some big leaguers sit, right? Blake Snell had the third best stuff plus in AAA last year when he was down there rehabbing. So if Grayson Rodriguez comes up and has a similar stuff plus to Blake Snell,

but more pitches than Blake Snell, I think, I think that's partially why our system pumped out the numbers they did. So for Grayson, we've got a... Why isn't it finding it come on uh we got a three of three even three 305 era 29 strikeout rate i just don't know what the innings are so i had him at like 45 with like 145 innings and then you know we were talking online i was like man if he you know if he does 145 innings i'll be so happy i was like well then i can't put 145 innings, I'll be so happy. And I was like, well, then I can't put 145 innings down. That means it's probably less than that.

So I don't know what inning number to put down for him. And I also don't know how they're going to use him because they're going to end up doing probably the Tyler – Wells. What's his first name again? Tyler? Tyler Wells. Taylor Wells.

Taylor Wells? Tyler Wells. Now you got me. Now you got me. Taylor Wells? Tyler Wells. Now you got me. Now you got me. I think I have this. Now you got me. The Tyler Wells treatment, you know, where he gets 80 pitches a game. The Drew Rasmussen treatment.

He's going to get 80 pitches a game. So even if he gets a fair amount of innings, he may not go deep into games. I think they're going to really massage that and try to bring him along slowly. So having my top 50, I think that makes him a draft. And, you know, there's some risk associated with him, but he's like really near Nathan Eovaldi, who has his own risk that, you know, he could hurt himself before the opening day, you know?

So once you get into the, yeah, once you get into the place where, you know, you're drafting a guy who might get hurt before opening day you know so we thought once you get a lot about him yeah once you get into the place where you know you're drafting a guy who might get hurt before opening day i think grayson rodriguez is a great uh alternative because the limited samples you know minor league stuff was was great in terms of stuff plus i've seen other people show me his track man readouts it it's kind of bonkers how good he is. So I think he's actually someone. It's almost like the Corbin Carroll thing where, like, I think you should maybe draft him.

I don't know how far you should push him because I don't know how many innings he'll get, but I think you should draft him. I agree. 12.5K per nine last year in AAA is crazy. Under three walk, a 2-2 ERA, a six and one record in 14 starts. All of those things play up. His ex-fip was under three in AAA.

You had said though, just real quick, you had said like that was a guy after you did a lot of your projections and was going through like, he did a big jump. I mean, you're telling people, I don't know if everybody caught that. You just said Grisham Rodriguez inside your top 50 SPs and he had made that big jump. I mean, you're telling people, I don't know if everybody caught that, like you just said, Grish Rodriguez is inside your top 50 SPs and he had made that big jump.

Do you remember like how big of a boost you ended up giving him? Yeah, I don't know where I had him. I think I probably had him in the 80s. The 80s in my rankings is where I stick guys that I like that I'm not 100% sure about. Like we'll talk about later. We'll talk about Hayden Wesnenski.

Like I think he'll be the fifth starter. I've put out the reasoning here on this podcast why I think he'll be the fifth starter. I think he's much better than Adrian Sampson, but there's some risk that he isn't the fifth starter. So right now I have him in the 80s. There's some other names that'll come up here that'll be in the 80s. So, you know, Edward Cabrera is 81st for me. So I had him around there because I thought, here's a rookie with all the risk that a rookie entails. Well, is it truly all the same risk? Because I do actually have some data on him.

Once we put the minor league data in and it spit out a 305 ERA, that's different than it's spitting out for even other minor leaguers or other guys that have short samples that I have data on. It's basically the best rookie eligible player, pitcher in baseball. That's what the scouts say. His team is saying he's getting a chance to break, break with a camp with the team. So like I have to put him a little bit higher. And so I've got him in the fifties basically, uh, among some of the riskier veterans that I like. Yeah. I love Grayson Rodriguez. Uh, and I also love that he's working with his catcher that he

grew up in the entire system with, with Adley Rutschman. And he said, Adley Rutschman is best catcher in the world. These guys are familiar. Adley knows how to call games for him, which I think works just a little bit extra than some veteran catcher coming in and maybe even taking over a game completely. You know, they just say, don't worry,

rookie, I'm going to call. I've called these games. I know now these are two guys that are completely familiar with each other. And Grayson stuff is, you know, plus fastball plus change up. There's a great slider in there. He's gonna rock and projections are on his favorite on his side. Bat X even has 118 innings, a little under 10 K per nine, which I

think he's going to beat. And I think he's going to keep under the three walks per nine. The caveat is just the innings. That's it. Like the guy's gone over a hundred innings. Once he was hurt a decent amount last year, they didn't push him to the AFL, which could have just the innings. That's it. The guy's gone over 100 innings once. He was hurt a decent amount last year. They didn't push him to the AFL, which could have pushed his innings technically over 100. So I really know what to do with him. I can't imagine him pitching more than 130. If I thought the team might want to poke a little bit

and go 150, 160, and maybe a strider or something like that, I think I'd feel even better. But I am drafting him. I have pushed him up. I am trying to draft him where I can, where he doesn't cost a whole lot. He is one of the more fun rookie pitchers, but he's not all of them.

There are some other guys with gigs here. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning.

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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. And the next guy up actually kind of changed a little bit. You know, his status, simply because Lance McCullers now is in question, you know, rinse and repeat every

single season. Lance McCullers, does he play? Does he not? And it's Hunter Brown. Hunter Brown actually has a 226 fantasy pros ADP. I want to remind you that this consensus one is throwing players around here. This is technically the next guy up on the list, but the guy after this might be a little bit more interesting. His CBS ADP is 228. Fantasy Pro's consensus is 226. And with McCullers out, Hunter Brown actually looks like he might have an opportunity to be in the rotation. And that kind of changes why we would want him. Same thing would have happened with Aaron Ashby

had he not been hurt. But Hunter Brown, who obviously loves Justin Verlander, kind of mimicked his delivery after him. What do you think about Hunter Brown this year? Yeah, he's not quite the same guy. I wrote him up. I forget which piece. I think there's a Deep Sleepers coming out tomorrow.

I think he might be in that, or if he was in my breakout young pitchers. I did that. I showed that Pitching Ninja comparison of him overlaid basically on Justin Verlander. It looks very similar. However, Hunter Brown is shorter. His release point is lower.

He does not quite get the same vertical approach angle as Justin Verlander. However, Hunter Brown throws a 92 mile an hour slider. And in fact, his curveball is the better breaking pitch because he throws like an 86 mile an hour power curve with, you know, just ridiculous movement. And it's like 86. So he's got two really, really good breaking balls. I don't think his fastball is maybe necessarily as good as Verlander, especially not Verlander Prime. But I'm pushing that. I have a 121 number in here. I'm manually updating it right now to 145, 142. Let's go 142.

And I think at 142 innings, I've got him now pushed into the top 70. Would you rather have Hunter Brown or Zach Eflin? I've got Zach Eflin for 144 innings, projected for a 23% strikeout rate and a 3.5 ERA. I've got Hunter Brown projected for a 3.3 ERA and 23% strikeout rate and a 3.5 ERA. I've got Hunter Brown projected for a 3.3 ERA and 27% strikeout rate. So I think I could push him past Eflin. We'll see if he keeps moving before my next update. But Hunter Brown is great. The biggest risk, I think, is a tweet from Peter Gammons saying that Brian Abreu will be considered as a starter. However, if you look at Brian Abreu's command and you look at his pitch type command per pitch type,

he does not command any pitch at a level that I would call starter level command. He really reminds me a lot of... What was the last amazing stuff, really poor command houston reliever that came through that was going to start oh um oh there was two there's david polino and then there was the other one who was the bigger it's completely gone josh james wasn't it josh james yeah that was one of them josh james yeah josh james yeah and frankie something yeah but josh james is the one because he just didn't have he didn't have starter level command on any of his pitches and that's what i see when i look at abreu like he has bonkers

stuff plus numbers he would have even with the the starter to reliever the reliever to start a conversion and stuff plus is minus five uh he's like minus he's at 140 so he'd be at 135 stuff plus that's like spencer strider numbers so you know i think he does have the stuff to start but i don't think he has the command to start and hunter brown has just been starting you know he's he's just just slot him in you know what i mean so i think i think that's hunter brown's job and um and in fact i'm gonna give him him my Lance McCullers slot at 63. I completely agree. 27% K percentage in the major leagues in 2022.

He rocked a 31.5% K percentage in AAA, which I love. Walks were a little bit crazy. One interesting thing about Hunter Brown too is like, this is one of those, I think, very variant sliders where Fangraphs doesn't even know what to do because they designated as a cutter and it's like 93 and a half on average. It has more drop than a average cutter. But that's the funny thing is like this is probably one of those where he can just move it when it's up to 93. It probably cuts a little bit more when he takes a tiny bit off of it around a power slider in the, in the low nineties,

it slides. He's also got a little bit of a change up and he's got a curve ball, which he's using 31% of the time. So, I mean, just think about that. You have a 13 mile per hour variance between the curve ball and the average fastball. Plus you've got this cut slider that you're throwing in there. I think they're all hard. They're all hard. There's like difference. There's differential between them and they're all hard. So it's pretty much ideal. The you're throwing in there. I think they're all hard. They're all hard. There's like difference. There's differential between them and they're all hard. So it's pretty much ideal. You're right to bring up the walk rates,

but my location plus numbers, which I had for Hunter Brown in the minor leagues were league average. And so that was my first sort of clue being like, you know, sometimes I think a player's command and the minor league umpiring, the quality of minor league umpiring just doesn't mesh very well. And I don't know if it's because they live high in the zone or they throw a lot of breaking balls or whatever it is.

His locations were coming up at league average when his command grade was worse than league average, and I thought this means this is someone to bet on. So we've had him projected for league average and i thought this means this is someone to bet on so i we've had him projected for league average command again and uh i think he's going to be a pretty good pitcher so these are probably two big names and you know if i had quickly adjusted i probably would have brought these guys up maybe even to start before anything these are two more guys we've actually got three total that have gigs and kodai senga this is one of those weird ones i

didn't even think about it before. And, you know, it's like, we got to talk about Senga. And I'm like, oh yeah, he's a prospect. I actually try to like not put him on my first year player and stuff like that. It's just weird when you have 29 year olds, but at the end of the day, he does qualify. Kodai Senga has got a rotation spot locked up with the New York Mets and projections are pretty high up there.

Even across the board, the batats got around 150 innings. ERA is probably the highest on the Bat, if we're being honest. I'm actually looking at 462 compared to ATC, which is 373. That's actually a massive difference. I didn't even realize that. Massive difference. But Sango with a big power fastball. The Ghost is out there.

Everyone's kind of getting excited about that. There's obviously a big repertoire. I think it's very interesting him being in a rotation with max scherzer and verlander you hope there are things that just kind of seep off into how to pitch i think that's one of the biggest problems i've noticed when you have the translation of pitchers coming over kbo japan whatever it is that the long-standing season is the thing that gets to them how many times have you seen guys dominate for the first two months because hitters don't know what the hell to do, and then you start to get data

and guys start to adjust, and the bigger seasons seem to wear down a whole lot, and the readjustment as well seems to be a problem. That was something that happened like Tanaka in his first year. So, Kodaisenga, we can't ignore here, though his overall ADP is actually lower than Hunter Brown. He is higher in some individual

places as high as 141 on CBS. So that is a significant higher spot. So what do you think about Senga as far as one of the pitchers to target? He actually might be, if we really want to break it down, the best pitcher to target across the board because he's really not a prospect. And the New York Mets could push his innings. I don't see why they couldn't push him 170, 180. I do have him the highest out of all the prospects. I've heard good things about his feel for his cutter. He spent some time at driveline reacquainting himself with the American ball, which is important for a splitter so now you got a cutter and a splitter the fastball was sitting 95 96 uh you know in early bullpens and also a driveline so i don't know if it's going to be plus fastball velocity but i don't think

it'll be minus fastball velocity you know have you ever seen this by the way have you ever seen a guy come stateside and immediately go to driveline? Have we ever seen any pitchers do that? Because that's phenomenal. Everyone's very obsessed, rightfully so, by the way, very obsessed with wanting to know who are the guys that went to driveline this offseason every year because the results speak for themselves. Look at Sean Minaya, everything we see.

But have we ever seen a guy come immediately over before their professional debut and go to driveline? Yeah, I think the big guy might have. But, you know, I think that, you know, I also heard 17 IVB, so 17 induced vertical break on the fastball. So I don't think I think the thing that makes me nervous about guys when I don't have data is fastball shape, fastball quality, you know. And just from piecing together these pieces of information, he's not going to be below average in velo. He's not going to be below average in vertical break. So it may not be the best fastball in the world,

but I think it'll be average to above average. And then you've got the ghost fork and you've got the cutter. I mean, what if he was Kevin Gossman who has a 17 IVB and a great change up and he was Gossman, but he had a better cutter. So there is upside pretty, there's good upside here. Plus what I like about him is the home park. And I'm a little surprised to see like a 460RA when somebody that's going to be pitching in New York because the Mets home park is a good pitcher's park. It's part of why I also like the other guy, Shintaro Fujinami, who has a huge ADP and is going undrafted in some leagues. And I understand that the league, you know, looked at Fujinami and awarded him a contract that basically makes it say, like, we think you have a lever lever command. Today, watched him in spring debut walk two batters a fair amount of three ball counts i

can see what they're talking about however i see a guy who definitely has stuff he struck guys out he was throwing 98 um and uh he has a really big splitter and he has a good home park and he has a spot in the rotation. I mean, that's more than you can say for almost anybody else we're going to talk about today. Like the the got a gig section of this of this podcast is almost over. And so that's why I like Fujinami later in draft and holds and in certain places where depth matters and where role matters, because they're going to give him the role because they promised him a starting role when they signed him so fujinami i think it's

he may have a bad walk rate but he's i think he's gonna pitch is he the best pitcher in the age rotation i think he has the best upside uh walter chuck is the only one that has above average stuff in that rotation other than him we'll talk about it by the way who was the big guy that you said was that darvish when you said i said is there any guy that has come over immediately who is the big guy the big guy he also bats oh tony okay like you said it and i was like sitting here processing and i'm like who's the big guy who's the big guy oh you're talking about that big guy like the best the best one i was about to say god but when you said that you're talking about that big guy, like the best one. I was about to say God. When you said that, you were looking up. I was like, did God go to driveline?

No, we talked about this in the Lars Knutbar episode with Al Melchior at the end where we talked about the role of skepticism and open-mindedness and how much we should value information like he went to driveline. There are obviously players that go to driveline and struggle. Um, but I do know that, um, there is this, uh, new sort of phenomenon. I think that the giants are doing this. The giants are signing pitchers that have not gone to driveline and sending them there. So that's like Sean Mania. Oh, you haven't done weighted balls and you haven't done that whole thing. Well, uh, we'll sign you and send you to driveline, you know? Um, and so, uh, that's definitely the thing the giants have done with

three or four starting pitchers in the last two years alone. And the other thing that we're learning is that Japanese pitchers are not quite used to, they don't have the same access to the same tech and the same coaching styles that we have here. And so Kodai was not the only Japanese player that came over and went straight to drive on this year. I don't know exactly who was in the group, but I heard that there was a group of Japanese pitchers that came together. And that clearly has changed over years prior, which might change some of the stigma of what first year Japanese pitchers come and do and how they perform and when the league catches up to them. And not every six days. You brought up the six days. They start once a week over there, and they got to get on a five-man rotation here. So yeah, there's a lot of things. And then the cultural, you know, assimilation or the cultural, you know, things they have to get used to. So, you know, I can see why maybe some people have thought to fade Japanese pitchers in the past, but, you know,

just in brass taxes, in terms of what the quality of the league they're coming from, if I could tell you, you can take this guy coming from AAA that had pretty good numbers in AAA, or I can take this guy from the Japanese league who had pretty good numbers in Japanese league or really good numbers in Japanese league I would take the guy who was in the Japanese league because it's a better league than AAA tell you what driveline is becoming the whole like new I'm joining the athletic like in fantasy and baseball writers like uh breaking news I'm joining the athletic it's like breaking news I went to dri dry blind yeah exactly it's good all right one more guy in the like guaranteed gig spot and the lester's kind of coming off because we talked about you know senga and fujinami but kate cavalli kate cavalli

came up last year with the nationals uh 12 and a half k per nine which you gotta dig it was only in like one start his walks were pretty high in that first start. In AAA, he put up just around 100 innings. So he went over 100 on full season. His K per nine was close to the tens. His walks were a tiny bit lower. He had around a three and a half ERA. That was Cade Cavalli. And that first start that we got to see,

fastball was averaging just under 96. Power slider, which he threw 10% of the time, which was right under 90. And it was curve ball. So it was fastball curve ball equated to just about 75% of his repertoire. And then it went to change up and slider. So four pitches for 10% or more usage. It's kind of big power stuff.

He's just a little bit all over the place with walks. Nationals don't have a great team, but he does have a great spot and can probably push somewhere around 130, 140 innings. Projection systems have him about 120. ATC's got him at 123 with a sub 9K per nine and a four and a half ERA. Is Cade Cavalli enough of anything for you to consider for this coming year? He's got an ADP that's outside the top 500. So there's obviously deeper draft-and-hold type of stuff.

But is there any excitement for you around Cade Cavalli? Yeah, I don't know. There's a lot of things going on here because I don't really, in the past at least, have not had that much respect for the player development system in Washington. But at the same time, I know that they're trying to improve it and they've done a lot of things this offseason.

You can still be a good pitcher despite. You can go to your own labs. You can go to Dryland, go to Tread, go to any of these places and basically develop yourself even if your organization is not great. I'm going to ask something that's going to sound really crass. And I'm not trying to be rude when I say this, what have they done? Like,

do you know, like, is there, I don't, what have they done? Like, has there been any like substantial, like you said,

like they've changed some stuff, like, like what? Like they, they are bad. Hitting has been really, really bad for them. And that's why there's been a lot of stuff around Robert Hassel.

But like, has there been like one positive thing that came out that said they're now going to, I don't know, track me. I don't know. What is the thing that gets that maybe makes you think differently? Well, you know, there's a headline that they bolstered their player development staff in 2022 on The Washington Post. And then they expanded again this year but um they announced announced uh 14 new roles uh and 20 hires for player development last year um so i know that but i think that there are still some key personnel uh that are in their uh Director of player development, I think DeSean Watson, DeJohn Watson is somewhat new there. But I think there's some people that are some holdovers

that they kind of need to kind of investigate. Because the numbers aren't great. I mean, it's pretty obvious that they don't have great player development. And, you know, they even get good players from places that do have good player development, and they're not that great with them. I mean, I don't think Josiah Gray's season was that great. So, you know, but people can get better on their own. People can just have the talent to will out.

Cade Cavalli was a high draft pick. We're talking about a first rounder here, 22nd overall pick. We're talking about good swinging strike rates and strikeout rates to the minors. The model says the fastball is adequate but not plus. And the changeup might be good. But that he lacks breaking ball command. And that's the part that worries me the most because I think breaking ball command

might be one of the two or three most important things for a pitcher. You got to set up your fastball. You got to have guys that are willing to swing through any breaking pitch so you can set that fastball. But it's actually the thing that I was so critical about Casey Mize early on. You got to have guys that are willing to swing through any breaking pitch so you can set that fastball. But it's actually the thing that I was so critical about Casey Mize early on. Everyone was like, oh, the splitter, the splitter. Well, you saw it almost immediately that he couldn't command the splitter.

And every major leaguer just sat off of it and waited for him to throw a fastball. And he got destroyed. And obviously that can change over time and stuff like that but just anecdotally i'm adding that like yeah you don't have any breaking ball command major leaguers are just going to be like cool pitch i'm going to wait for the one that you put in the zone and i'm going to crush it and that's what ends up happening yeah so bring more command i mean like uh george kirby didn't have great stuff numbers on his pitches and uh uh you know i wouldn't say he outstuffs in on any pitch none of his pitches are like oh gosh look at that thing uh but at the same time he commanded them all he

commanded them all so as a pitcher as a header you can't really keyhole him you know you got it could be any of them yeah and look how great of a season george kirby had so i'm not trying to say that i'm just all of a sudden becoming a command guy, but it is important on a certain level. I'm definitely a command guy. Especially when you're kind of starting pitching. Yeah. I don't want to end up with a bunch of relievers with great stuff. I think that was something that Jeff Pontus said.

I was at the Baseball America Fantasy Summit this offseason. He said, if you just follow your stuff and stuff alone, you're going to end up with a bunch of great relievers. 100%. 100%. season is that if you just follow your stuff and stuff alone, you're going to end up with a bunch of great relievers. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. It's funny just because I am a command guy. When I fall in love with pitchers, even if their stuff is a little bit lacking, if they are hitting the zone, because I think there's way more growth in a pitcher like that than there is with really, really great stuff, guys. It's not one for one. I mean, Hunter green, I think is completely retransforming who he is as a pitcher by that slider usage and throwing it for strikes more i don't believe kumar rocker is gonna get fixed but the one thing i would say

is kumar rocker has an incredible slider and not to make this about him but just i've watched so much of him over the last six months and he seemed, he lacks so much confident with early throwing of his slider. But when he starts to adjust in outings, he all of a sudden is lights out because of exactly what we talked about before. Now you've got a slider that he can throw anytime he wants for strikes, freaks these hitters out. And then the fastball actually work because he has the poorest fastball

command, but all of it to come back and say that, like, I just think the growth is so much better with a guy that can command the zone and there's so much more that you can do and add than it is just a you know a power stuff pitcher trying to i don't know command is in my eyes a lot harder to try to manage than you know maybe a little bit more movement or you know being a little bit more slick about how you're pitching there's there's also just like there's the batters sort of function differently in the minors than the majors and i think you know

k cabali it says the numbers kind of say that he had better fastball command the breaking ball command i could see in the minors just everyone being like okay i gotta get the fastball i gotta get the fastball you know and so if he can command the fastball then they're like oh oh god he can command the fastball and then he just puts a slider wherever and they and they swing through it right whereas here uh there are just as many guys that are maybe looking slider because there's such a slider league in the major leagues. You know, it's such a slider league that,

you know, slider command becomes so much more important. So those are guys that we're identifying as having gigs. Those are prospects that you might want to target. But that doesn't mean there aren't guys that are very exciting. And we have actually kind of a bigger list that's going here through on out. And maybe the most exciting pitcher in baseball right now is actually not Grayson Rodriguez. A lot of people are turning over and their number one pitching prospect is becoming Andrew Painter. And Andrew Painter with the Phillies is so fascinating because this is a

19 year old kid who doesn't turn 20 for a couple more months. The Phillies have openly acknowledged they are willing to give him a shot to break camp with this team and have a rotation spot. And you obviously have to think about innings in general. Last year he pitched, God, I have fan graphs up, so I've got to do the math. It looks like around 90. Yeah, like about 100. Exactly.

He put about 100 crossing three levels, which was phenomenal. An 11K plus per nine at every single level. He's some of the biggest stuff across the board. Huge fastball. The biggest question is, does he break camp? And he's going to be up. He's going to be a guy that's going to get an opportunity. Projections across the board kind of want to play the 80 marker. They want to play it safe. But if he

breaks camp, Philly's putting themselves, Philly's are putting themselves in a spot that they could get an extra pick because he qualifies as being on top 100 list. If he breaks camp, he's instantly available for that. Even if they send him down later in the year. And if he is in that, that uh obviously if he wins rookie of the year at the top uh three they even have some compensation for they're gonna get extra stuff but andrew painter might have the biggest upside of any of these pitchers in in like the total value land but what can he really do and give to us in fantasy in 2023 you know is this somebody that you really really really want to target?

And his ADP is going around 315 on Fantasy Pros, but as high as 235 on CBS. Yeah, it's really interesting. I think if you're taking him in a place where you could just drop him for a week one starter, if it didn't work out, then that's okay. I think that's worth the risk there's some people talking about maybe they don't love his fastball shape or whatever but you know the dude's six seven and i know that no matter what stuff model you got mine anybody else's

they've struggled a little bit with people on the periphery and who's on more on the periphery than six seven like when sean higeli came up my stuff model really loved him and i was like six foot eleven by the way i think for people that are sitting out there i think six foot eleven six foot ten yeah yeah that guy's really tall what's weird about him is he throws like a sinker and he's really tall so it's just a really weird combination of things and uh and you know i heard actually he put some weight on and this is uh he's trying to up his velo he might be interesting but in any case uh six foot seven with great command struck out 30 33 percent of the people he's faced and walked one and 1.8 in his last stop. Like these are Google Gaga numbers. I'm,

I'm willing to take that shot. I don't know if I want to take that shot, you know, as my SP five. I mean that there are a lot of other guys that are more established who, you know, we're going to break camp, but for time on a bench pitcher,

we were like, Hey, I'm going to take a shot here. I think that's worth it. Okay. So two 35 and CVS is pretty high. By the way, my, one of my favorite numbers to look at is K minus walk that's worth it okay so 235 in cvs is pretty high by the way my one of my favorite numbers to look at is k minus walk percentage and it's so stupid with him because he had that one percent walk rate that uh in triple or in sorry in double a he had a 32.1

k minus walk percentage i don't know if you can wrap your head around it like if you see a guy with a 25 or 26 you're like that's really good most guys don't have a you can wrap your head around it. Like if you see a guy with a 25 or 26, you're like, that's really good. Most guys don't have a 13 or something. Most guys don't have a 30% K percentage. And one K minus walk percentage, which was absurd. So two 35 and CBS, I looked up a NFBC draft champions from February on,

and he has an ADP of three Oh four with a high of two 43. That's the absolute highest. So let me ask you, I'm going to do a couple guys below and then I'm going to test you. Would you rather take Andrew Painter or where is the next starting pitcher that I want to find? Taewon Walker. I might actually take Taewon Walker in a draft and hold.

I just know in draft and holds, I'm just looking for innings, man. I'm desperate for innings. I want inningsnings like taking a shot on somebody like andrew painter is like um like it could be a 25 inning or 100 inning you know split it's like tywin walker you're most likely to get like 130 to 150 innings okay andrew painter or martin perez andrew painter okay so now we're gonna go above Andrew Painter. There's a certain quality of innings I want. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got that real quick on that answer.

Andrew Painter or these are a couple of players that are going above him in the draft champions or Ross Stripling? Ross Stripling. Andrew Painter or Sean Mania? Sean Mania. We're going to get – see get these are guys I would actually slot like in my starting rotation to start the year

okay last one if I didn't have that then I would have to go further down my bench if you took Painter then you have to take somebody really boring after that and hope they have a slot Painter or Roenze Contreras hmm it's going to determine or Roenze Contreras?

It's going to determine because I don't think you want Andrew Painter. Roenze. Yeah, I don't think... I don't think... I think the idea of Andrew Painter is fun, but application of actually drafting... Well, you put me in the draft and hold box. Okay, that's true.

Okay, so then go to standard... If we're talking about a 15 team league where it's a bench pick i would take him i would definitely take him over martin if i thought ryansey might not make opening day i might take him over him uh i might take him over mania so there's there's a little bit of difference there because i'd be taking him for bench slot and be like, I'm going to drop him week one if he's not on the team. Okay. Let's move on to the next guy, Andrew Painter. I'm a little bit indifferent about him. I just don't know how aggressive the team is going to want to be. I think he's very exciting, but if I'm going on a rookie, I'm probably picking more of a gig or there's a couple of guys if you want to take some shots here, but Hey, Andrew Painter might break

camp. What about Hayden Wisniewski? I think you brought him up. 364 Fantasy Pros ADP, around 400 on CBS. There's a lot of these guys where it's just rotation is in question. I actually, I'm going to throw him in here as well. Ken Waldachuk. I think both of those guys. Waldachuk is like further down, 466 overall ADP. Both of those guys, we could see a scenario where they've got a rotation spot,

but we're just really uncertain. Do either one of those guys become players that you want to target in really any format? If I knew they had a rotation spot, I'd love both of them. Wisniewski has a big sweeper. His fastball is good enough. Both of those are above average pitches by Stuff Plus. The cutter is pretty good. I think cutter, sinker, sweeper actually works as a combination of pitches.

And I think that he's better than Adrian Sampson pretty clearly. So if I was putting together my best Cubs roster, he'd be on it to start the season, and Sampson would be my call call up in case somebody gets hurt situation. Smiley today wasn't missing many bats either. Drew Smiley. There's actually just a veteran that he can beat out for a spot too. Then we had the revelation that Justin Steele had general arm fatigue

already. Yeah. So I think the combination of injury and possible not goodedness for Drew Smiley is going to put Wozniacki in that rotation. The athletics one is really interesting because the GM already told us the top three. Forrest already came out and basically told us that Fujinami and Rusinski and Blackburn are in the rotation.

And he did that because he had to probably promise Rusinski and Fujinami rotation spots to sign them. That was part and parcel of the pitch to those two. So if you've got those guys in, then he mentioned Kaprelian and then as someone who's kind of established himself. So I think you're four deep with those guys. Maybe

someone's hurt. Maybe it's only three. But I think you're four deep with those guys and the competition is Waldachuk versus Muller and Sears and Adrian Martinez. Adrian Martinez plays the role of the up and down guy for me. Sears, I think I would like to see more of him in the minor leagues. So I think it's Kyle Muller versus Ken Waldachuk for that last slot.

People have guys they like better among that. I know there's a lot of people who love Kyle Muller. My model doesn't really like him. He doesn't have any pitches above 95 stuff plus and there's actually a fair amount of pitches in there some command of stuff walda chuck uh you know pitching plus likes his change up and his four seam and actually says his locations are pretty good on those two pitches so all i'm looking for out of waldauk is a slight improvement in the quality of the breaking balls or the breaking ball command and um i think he can do that so i like waldachuk better than muller i think he'll

take that that fifth spot uh so i like waldachuk and wesnenski and i've been drafting them well the chuck is actually going one spot after mackenzie gore would you rather take that shot uh around the 360s on nfbc and it's not doesn't have to be drafted hold but that's just where his value is yeah him mckenzie gore right and there's actually another pitcher i'm going to save him though they're all kind of going around each other as well to check the guy you would rather take the risk on i don't know i like gore's fast ball uh he's the velo has been good in camp and he's got a uh a rotation spot all to his own so uh might take gore over over wall to check now this is going to be my favorite portion of the show because we're going

to talk about some arizona diamondback pitchers because there's actually multiple to talk about now i'm not going to actually talk about the number 180p guy because i want to talk about the most fascinating of all of them and this is the player at the beginning of the show when i said there's one minor league pitcher that had like 160 plus innings already in the minors. He led the entire minor leagues in all of strikeouts. He had 16, I believe, games where he went six innings or more, which is absurd.

And the numbers across the board, low walk rates, high strike, great K minus walk percentage. It's Brandon Fott with the Diamondbacks. He actually pitched two days ago or yesterday as we did this. Two innings, gave up one hit. His usage was 52% fastball, 30% slider, 13% curveball. So just very classic look of a starting pitcher. And he looked great. He does not seem to be currently locked in line for a rotation spot but i believe to this minute the diamondbacks should consider it even if it's not at the expense of the next two guys we're going to talk about and it's at the expense of a guy like kyle davies it doesn't

matter to me brandon fought is the best minor league pitcher on the diamondbacks and probably in consensus a top 10 starting pitcher prospect wise kind of across the board so what were your what were if you saw any of the start and what are your thoughts on brandon fought and his ability to take a rotation spot if not out of camp maybe sometime soon it's so difficult for me to scout the stat line on him because i know how difficult those parks are that fought has pitched in in the minor leagues and yet you know he's given up some you know pretty large eye-opening home run you know total so that's his one knock yeah is there something in the arsenal is it is it more of a two pitch guy i see a 45 55 of a present future

command grade from fangraphs is it a command thing or is it just a park thing in your opinion with the home runs me i think there's a little bit of pitch mix that's in there about how he's approaching uh i think he attacks his own um did you say it was poor command numbers that were on there he's got a 45 present 55 future on fangraphs command yeah so i thought he took a step up he he i mean he's never had really over um a mid two walk per nine career in triple a he averaged two walks per nine uh it's high strikeouts the dude numbers are not high yeah yeah no so that's what i'm saying like so when you're talking about command he pumps the zone actually reminds me i talk when i talk about pitchers that like attack the zone i think of like Shane McClanahan who's just always just throwing right at the zone or the change-up is

just dying that's kind of how like Brandon Fodd is to me he's just attacking the zone at all times and I think as you're learning to be a pitcher I think when you do that he's been a lot more susceptible to homers I actually wish the data I would love to see is like like it wasn't the fastball like where has all the homers come off of? Because I could see if he was attacking heavy fastball, that guys were getting ahead of him. But like you also said, these are a couple pretty hitter friendly environments that he pitched in,

in the PCL. He was able to still maintain a two, six, three ERA, which I have likened to many people is reminiscent of Zach Allen. Like you don't see pitchers having a sub three ERA and succeed in the PCL. Dre Jameson, Ryan Nelson.

Those are two guys that got hit up in the, we're going to talk about who got hit up in the PCL. And then they, people don't know how to like quantify them. Cause they're like, well, these girls had five ERA and then they come to the majors and they're good. PCL really hurts you.

And this was, that was somewhere where he was the most successful Brandon Fott was. But the homers were still a little bit of a problem, though. They dipped. My opinion is just the way that he pitches, and he's still learning to be a pitcher. Every other metric across the board just works in his favor. But you don't want to get too, I suppose, ahead of yourself. But it's just great K numbers.

It's a good pitch mix. I think he was a little bit heavy fastball early on. And like you mentioned earlier, if you lose some of that secondary stuff in certain spots, guys are going to wait and try to hit the fastball. And I think that's what has ended up happening with him. But they have not anointed him. Projections are under 50 innings pitch this year,

which would not make him a target really for anybody. Yeah, it's difficult because the D-backs went and signed Davies, and you almost feel like they have to cycle through Nelson and Jameson no matter what you think of them. I'm a big fan of Ryan Nelson. I think he has a great fastball with ride, good command, and I think he can use his secondaries more this year and get more strikeouts.

But they signed Zach Davies. They have to kind of push the corpse of Madison Bumgarner out somehow and so the back end that rotation seems pretty set you either have Nelson or Jameson at five and then if whoever you don't have seems like they're first in line if someone gets hurt so yeah he looks like at best the eighth starter here and that's just a question of more like how much fab will i drop on him when he does get the call up rather than somebody i'm going to you know try and nurse through the season on my roster there's a lot of speculation with him like if you were in a league where you had i mean i don't know why a lot of redraft leagues have minor league spots but i

know some do or sometimes you can run na spots he's a guy that i'd like to hold in roster but interestingly enough obviously you know i've been on there talking with them uh i'm occasionally on once a week on cbs and you know scott white and them love brandon fought he has a 288 adp on cbs right now brandon fought i just want you to understand this there are two pitchers that are look like they are in line for that gig and brandon fought who's a great minor league pitcher has an inside the 250 adp that people are investing in right now that's a pretty crazy big investment for uh this not being locked in or i'm sorry to the top 300 adp i'm just not so sure you can make that investment. Yeah. I wonder why CBS is higher. Maybe they have a, uh, maybe they have average, they have, uh, more keeper leagues on average or something. It's something like that. That could, that could be affecting it. Uh, real quick,

any other thoughts on Ryan Nelson fantasy pros consensus, ADP 477, Dre Jameson's actually higher at three 88. Dre Jameson had a really clean ending. Ryan Nelson, I believe did not have a really clean inning in his first start, but Ryan Nelson seems like the guy that they would probably go with, and you and I both were like, ooh, Dre Jameson, kind of interesting that he only pitched that one inning, and it was almost

kind of relief-y in how the Diamondbacks used him. Not that they're going to put him in that spot, but you are banking on Ryan Nelson being the guy. But I wouldn't just go Gaga over 99 in one inning from Jay Jameson because Vila was not really the problem for him, and it's one inning. So you'd compare it to his max last year, which is near there. But don't erase that name.

Oh, we got to just run through these names real quick. Oh, yeah, we're moving. I just moved it. Yeah, I moved it. But, yeah, this last group is the real long shots and i think these these guys are more names to watch out for um you know in season early season um and maybe the first guy maybe there's an outside chance that stuff starts shaking down in spring where he kind of has that Julio Rodriguez like rise through spring training and and takes the fifth slot in

Toronto Mr. Ricky Tiedemann I think you know is somebody to watch because you say Kikuchi's command is just pretty bad and even in his first start it wasn't that much better he he didn't do he didn't have a good strike percentage on his fastball. He wasn't, it was all kind of his breaking balls. Like it always is. And, uh, if they just get sort of tired of that. And I think Kikuchi's best role might be in like a two or three inning role. Then, uh, how about the guy who's, you know, just today through, you know, sat 98 and wowed everybody with an 85 on our breaking ball. It's really hat-barred. If you want something to look for when you

don't want to go through Stuff Plus or whatever, if you want to just look at fastball velo and breaking ball velo, those are two things that can tell you a lot. And 85 is the marker for a breaking ball. I thought Ricky Tiemann looked phenomenal. He only had 12 total pitches but he got six swing-throughs

and he got two total whiffs. The change-up was a strikeout. Looked phenomenal. Hit 99.4 on the sinker. Unique release point. Yeah, he is... Like I've talked about pumping the zone. That's another one of those guys that's kind of McClanahan-y to me, where he'll just kind of pump the

zone, and it's really, really good stuff, and the announcers were going bonkers, and you never know i think he's 100 an option uh the guy you actually mentioned you're like don't get rid of him i was just moving him was kyle harrison that's another one of those guys kyle harrison with the giants fantasy pros adp of 466 actually going 207 on cbs and i'm going to throw out these last three names and you can kind of pick and choose harrison real quick i just think that there is i I think he is locked to do some innings in the major leagues, but that is a very veteran team that already has. The reason why I think he's a lot to do some innings in that major leagues is I

think that director of player development or the farm director in San Francisco is has heat under his butt and they have not really produced much recently and they should have been producing something by now. And if he can get Kyle Harrison to the big leagues and performing well, that might save him another year of trying to get some hitters up to the big leagues. So I think that there's some internal politics that could lead to Kyle Harrison making his debut this year.

Marco Luciano is a big stain for that organization because where you have he went up the same year as Corbin Carroll and CJ Abrams in rookie ball. Those two are in the majors and Luciano hasn't played above high A and has hurt again from the Dominican Waiter League. So just adding to what the pressure we're talking about. The last three is potential options. Bryce Miller

who I talked to in spring talked about he's now got a sweeper and a gyro two different sliders. You've got Bobby Miller with the Dodgers and I wrote Tanner Beebe on here as one of those guys you should take a look at with the Guardians as Daniel Espino is out. Do any of those three jump out to you as a guy that you might take a look at, maybe midseason for Fab? I don't think any of these guys are really options that work.

Ricky Tiedemann is the closest to breaking camp, but Miller, Bryce Miller, Bobby Miller, or Tanner Beebe as players that you would put as a little star to watch to see if any news pops for them. There's some news around Tanner Beebe that is not so much about Tanner Beebe as it does maybe create some opportunity for him, which is I believe that Cody Morris is hurt

and Daniel Espino is hurt. Did I get that right? Yes, yeah, Daniel Espino is hurt. Did I get that right? Yes. Yeah. Daniel Espino is going to miss some time. I know Daniel Espino is hurt. We brought along slowly due to lat discomfort. So he's not hurt as long term.

I think the Espino news was, you know, shutting him down for a little bit. Yeah. He's going to be out for a month or so. But that's still opportunity for BB to kind of rise in the ranks. And, you know, if there is a need early on, I think he, like B.B., could be the guy. I think there's Logan T. Allen. Joey Cantillo is coming back from injury himself, isn't he?

Yep. Yeah, he missed most of last year. He just pitched a session a couple days ago. He pitched in the AFL a little bit to try and get his innings up or something? No, he didn't pitch in the AFL, but he just threw a side session on the Guardians backfield a couple days ago. So he needs some warming up.

And Beebe's ahead of him. That's why he's so interesting. He's kind of ahead of all these guys. All the guys we just mentioned, right? Maybe Logan T. Allen. I don't know. Zavion Curry had 100-plus innings last year and is listed as a sixth starter.

That's kind of crazy, dude. Zavion Curry is listed as a sixth starter in Cleveland. There is actually a lack of depth there for the first time. There could be a rookie that really steps forward, especially since we know they don't love Zach Pleszak. They've offered to shop him. Zach Pleszak has some collapse risk in terms of if he throws a 4-7 ERA again,

maybe they just say, hey, let's see what Tanner Bibi can do. Oh, 100%. Those are 2023 Rookies of Interest, the pitcher's edition for you guys to chew on. I will not be on the next episode. That's going to be Al and Eno are going to be doing it. Do you have a player interview that's coming up? That's going to be Al and Eno are going to be doing it. Do you have a player interview that's coming up?

Well, we're going to do a labor recap this weekend from first pitch in Florida. And then we do have an interview slated for next week. I think Greg Jewett is going to come on and do a closer episode. You're going to have James Anderson on as I take a little bit of a break, some personal time, and we're going to keep you rolling along. I mean, James Anderson knows the first-year player draft pool really well. He knows prospects really well. You guys are, I'm sure, going to have a great conversation. Greg Jewett knows closers. We're going to start having closer information coming in, so we're going to keep you guys informed while I'm out for a little bit, but it's been a pleasure, and I know you guys will keep the ship going.

We got it. We got it. I just confirmed it with James. We'll be on with Tuesday on the Prospect Edition. That's going to do it. Go to theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. Sign up today. Get access to all the stuff. Thank you guys so much for hanging out with us, and we will talk to you again next time right here on Rates and Barrels.

Bye, friends. Thanks for listening.