Rates & Barrels - 2025 AL West Team Previews

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

Eno and DVR continue their 2025 Team Preview series in the America League West! Is the Astros’ control of the division finally winding down? Are the Rangers primed for another deep October run with a healthier roster in 2025? Can the Mariners hit enough to support their elite rotation? Can the A’s close the gap on the three teams ahead of them, and have the Angels improved enough to do the same after a disappointing 2024? Rundown 2:26 2025 Houston Astros Preview 14:15 2025 Texas Rangers Preview 32:15 2025 Seattle Mariners Preview 44:05 2025 Sacramento Athletics Preview 59:32 2025 ‘Los Angeles’ Angels of Anaheim Preview 1:12:17 A Selection of Sleepers From the AL West Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Note: Win Total Projections for the episode are from Baseball Prospectus' PECTOA system at the time of the recording. Support BP -- they do great work!Current PECOTA Projections: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/standings/ Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Producer Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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paying your bills could sound like this. Yes! Earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month. Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Wednesday, February 12th, Derek Van Rynfer, Enos Serres here with you on this episode. We continue with our 2025 team preview series. We move into the AL West. The series just started up on the episode before this one.

We got the NL West already in the bank. We're lining up for two divisions per week so we got two more weeks of previews wrapped around all the other great shows we're doing. Good news as we mentioned earlier in the week, Eno's starting pitcher rankings have dropped on the Athletic. If you don't have a subscription theathletic.com slash rates and barrels will get you one. From there check out the ranks we're going to discuss those on Friday because we're gonna focus a lot on the pitchers that Eno loves in 2025. Yay, there's already mistakes. I'm sorry, I'll clean them up.

I didn't share the Google Docs, I woke up to a ton of Google Doc requests. Somebody at Discord spotted that even before I was awake. And then Drew Rasmussen's not in there. If you're listening, he's probably around 50, I think around Clay Holmes, somebody with a grid projection, not many innings, maybe some role question. And yes, Max Scherzer is a Blue Jay.

The, how the sausage is made with rankings deserves its own episode at some point in the future, but we will save that for now. You mentioned the Discord. It's really hard actually just to get all the pitchers because you'll do a projection system right and then you'll and that'll have some holes in it. You'll do what who played last year and that'll have some holes in it. Then you could do like depth charts like I do.

I comb through like four times just to make sure I have all the pitchers and somehow drew Rasmussen maybe he's on a depth chart somewhere as a reliever didn't play that much last year I don't know why what it is, but he did he just didn't show up in my so there you go It happens, but you mentioned the discord you can join the discord with a link in the show description a lot of conversation there We have specific team channels. We got strategy channels for fantasy all sorts of good stuff in there We're trying to share some more of the graphics from the show there So if you're not watching us on YouTube you can still see some of the visuals that we're putting up

because they may be insightful for you, even if you're just listening and you check them out later. Discord link in the show description. All right, you know, we're going to continue our preview series in the AL West and start with the Astros. And we kind of have a question wrapped around the analysis. Are they still the favorites to win this division?

We've been looking at the Pocota projections by projection. They're not, but they won the division last year. So they get the top spot in our preview. You look at what they've done this off season, trading Kyle Tucker to the Cubs is a big loss, although he missed about half of last season with a leg injury. So they've already weathered that storm to some degree.

They bring in Christian Walker. They get Esauk Paredes back in the Kyle Tucker trade, and then there's this question, from now Alex Bregman is out but perhaps by the time this episode is finished or in the next few days there will be a reunion with Alex Bregman that is at least still on the table. We've been known to speak transactions into existence by recording content and having it be immediately stale once it drops So perhaps we'll get lucky once again with Alex Pregman I think the big question around the core group of hitters for Houston is your Don Alvarez completely healthy It's something we worry about all the time like the amount of time and energy I spend

worrying about your Don Alvarez's knees is Staggering he says he's going to be ready for spring training one of any limitations playing left field an energy expend worrying about your down Elvarez's knees is staggering. He says he's going to be ready for spring training. One of any limitations playing left field. They probably have some designs on the HM more anyway. So is this team, despite trading Kyle Tucker away, at least on a similar level to where they were a year ago? I don't think so. I don't think so.

To answer your titular question, I think this is the year for change. What is it now? It's been seven years out of the last eight. The Houston Astros have taken this division and I'm calling for change and One of the things you mentioned was you know, oh they weathered the storm with Kyle Tucker last year You know with Kyle Tucker mostly being out

I'd like to point you to the playoff odds for the division You can actually go to fan graphs and see last year's playoff odds in a graph format. And if you look at the Astros last year, they were not the favorite to win the division as late as August 15th. And guess what happened in August? Kyle Tucker got healthy. Yes. Kyle Tucker got healthy. Yes! Kyle Tucker came back.

By projections you mentioned that they, over at Fangrass, they're in a virtual tie with the Mariners. And the Rangers are a game ahead of those. So it's a total scrum. And then by vibe, my vibe check here, I'm the senior vibe reporter. My Vive check here is that this is the denouement of a dynasty because the stars are leaving and the youth isn't producing the same kind of level of stars as were there before. The player development system isn't quite, you know, the wheels aren't quite as greased as they were before. And so you're basing your hopes this year

on shaky foundation. You're on Alvarez's knees. Isak Perez's ability to be anything close to Alex Bregman. Jose Altuve's aging bat. One of the worst collection of outfielders in the big leagues. I don't wanna be too negative. There are ways this can work out. Hayden Wazniewski is kind of a fun

pitcher here. Hayden Wazniewski is kind of a fun pitcher. He comes out of the Michael King, Clark Schmidt, Will Warren mold. I just wanted to show that graphically which is to say guys that don't necessarily have great four seamers have great sweepers and have a certain arm slot where they have to figure out what to do against lefties. Michael King's change-up stuff plus grade may surprise people. It was a 78. They have definitely talked to people about this, even to people on the Padres.

And I think what it is is if you look at a heat map for how Michael King places that change-up, he puts it on a dime. I mean, he's got great command of that thing. So I think more of that value comes from command than actual stuff because it looks like a change up you would get from that kind of arm slot. But generally he has great command, a great sweeper, and he's made it all work by, if you can see,

the Michael King's four seam stuff plus is 100, his sinker is 98. So he's gotten just enough out of his fastballs. Clark Schmidt, the breakout was going to that cutter. his sinker is 98, so he's gotten just enough out of his fastballs. Clark Schmidt, the breakout was going to that cutter. He has a 104 stuff plus cutter, 87 sinker, and a better curve than King. So they're not exactly the same pitchers.

It's just a similar arm slot, similar stuff. Wesniewski has 85 on the stuff plus on the fore seam, 102 on the sinker, 82 on the cutter, and 92 on the stuff plus on the four seam 102 on the sinker 82 on the cutter and 92 on the change so he's stuck kind of in between he's not Schmidt and he's not King he's a lot of similarities but he doesn't have the fastball of King he doesn't have the curveball of Schmidt I put Luis Ortiz on there Will Warren on there just reference points. But Wesniewski does have the pieces to be Luis Ortiz, to be Clark Schmidt, if not Michael King. And he's their five.

So if they pull that together, it's a decent rotation. I really like Arrghetti as a sleeper this year. He might actually be my pick for starting pitcher sleeper. And Framber is just a steady Eddie every year. Hunter Brown seems ascendant to ace quality. And even if Blanco regresses, you've got Luis Garcia coming back at some point, it's a pretty good rotation. So I'm not going to talk smack on this rotation.

I think that's sort of where they can make up ground. If the pitching exceeds expectations, they did it last year with with a few guys when the steps that Hunter Brown took were massive We've talked a lot about those on the show. We're no Blanco's season was incredible Spencer Arragedi has shown some some promise they will get Luis Garcia back from Tommy John surgery events Eventually as you have the possibility of was Nesky clicking so they have a Nice rotation and a little bit of depth there too. I think it's also a question of whether or not they will miss Ryan Presley just from a depth perspective, probably not that much.

I mean, yeah, he's a nice reliever, has a nice run in Houston, but I think with Hayter and Abreu still there as your top two high leverage guys and a decent cast behind them still To gobble up the middle innings. They're probably in good enough shape. It's just kind of weird I'd like to see what forced Whitley might do. Yeah, he's out of options back as a reliever. He's out of options I think he's gonna make that bullpen. He has high-end stuff. They do need someone I think behind a brave Right now Taylor Scott and Brian King are sitting there at 92 miles an hour as the next option. So it's not all about velocity, but like when you're a reliever it kind of is.

The lineup is, for all the things I said that were negative about it, it's still pretty good in that if you count the number of holes in this lineup, and they're all in the outfield But of all the things you could need in season if you need to go out and get a corner outfielder or two In the trade market. It's not usually like where Pop-ups come from like where like oh that guy a lot of times It's just opportunity out there like jerks and profile ifon Prowfar. They could have a Jurekson Prowfar on this team. Maybe Jake Myers takes a slight step forward with the power after a couple years removed

now from the shoulder injury. Maybe Chas McCormick finds it again. I like Jacob Melton a little bit. Do you like Jacob Melton? One thing I like about Melton is he's a left-hander that can play center. So if the Jake Myers experience doesn't work out, Jacob Melton, not projected to be great because he wasn't amazing in AAA and he's 24, but a left-hander with glove and legs could step into that void if Jake Myers doesn't keep it going.

So they have some options. Did they sign a super, oh, Ben Gamble, yes. Right, Ben Gamble. Yeah, well, I do think it's maybe the worst outfield. If you take your own Alvarez out of it, it might be the worst outfield in baseball. Yeah, I do think the overall concern around Alvarez is warranted,

because when you look at the projections, he's projected for a 171 WRC+. The rest of this core, Walker, a nice addition, a 115, El Tuve, because because of aging down to a 109 Parade a so 107 projections are always a little soft on him. I think he fits the park really well They don't have that secondary Big bat behind Alvarez anymore. So a bit more like no holes than Mike standout lineup. It's more like a decent It's no holes and then well, usually there were no holes except for Martin Maldonado.

Now it's kind of like the bottom third of the order instead of the nine spot is starting to become a concern. Maybe we all like Chas McCormick going to last season. Maybe we were a year too early there. Maybe you're right about someone like Myers. Maybe Yiner Diaz behind the plate takes another step forward and he ends up being 20 or 25% better than the average. He makes it a little bit doable

to have basically an outfield full of holes because you usually have a hole at short and catcher and center, right? If you have, that's like, teams will have two or three holes in those places because they're like, hey, we'll just put defense there. And having Pena and Diaz does afford them a little bit more wiggle room in the outfield,

but that's where they need someone to step forward. Yeah, so I do think that's the weakness as it stands right now, but a reunion with Bregman, probably because of how tightly clustered the first three teams in this division are, a reunion with Bregman might be enough to give them a little bit of separation

in the initial projections. As we do on all of our team previews, we've got the Picico Pico da win total numbers from baseball prospectus eighty seven point five is the win total number from Pico da as of Wednesday morning too hot too cold or just right on these Astros too hot for me 84 at Fang grass that's not my entire reasoning I gave my entire reason I think, those were the last 12 minutes were four. Yeah. I think it's just right on the strength of that pitching.

I think the bottom two teams in this division still lag enough to where if you can just. Oh, and might just give them wins. Might be able to beat up on those teams just enough to hang around, even if you have a few flaws to address. And I don't get the sense that the Jim Crane Astros are a team that will remain in contention at the trade deadline and do nothing.

I kind of give them the benefit of the doubt that they'll keep pushing chips in even if they're sitting around a payroll level on opening day that they want to hold firm at for now because they're generally pretty active mid-season. I do think they're going to miss Kuchi, even though they've got that depth, because I think the back-end fill-ins are not as good as what Kikuchi was at the end of last season. So another little thing that's different

about the Astros today versus what we saw at the end of last season. Let's shift the focus over to the Rangers. Are the Rangers ready for another playoff run? That is the big big big question here. They also are a team that hasn't had a ton of money to spend but they've been active this winter yet again. And if you look at who's in versus who's out, it is a combination of Jack Peterson, Jake

Berger and Kyle Higashiyoka in with Nathaniel Lowe and Carson Kelly going out on the hitter side. They did keep Nate Ivaldi and they've pretty much rebuilt their entire bullpen. Robert Garcia who came back in the Nate Lowe trade, Chris Martin who they signed, Jacob Webb, Sean Armstrong, Hobie Milner, Jesse Chavez, Max Scherzer is gone, Kirby Yates is gone. If you didn't have Kirby Yates on a fantasy team or you weren't watching the Rangers much last year, you might not realize how good he was. That's a pretty big loss, but they've taken the volume approach to the bullpen.

Jose LeClerc is gone as well. I'm really curious what you think about the Rangers off-season overall and then how much you trust a boost from the youth, right? A full full healthy season of Wyatt Langford. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see he's got the third highest plate appearance projection of this group. That could go a long way. And then of course, Josh Young, who's battled a lot of injuries, the possibility of having him healthy and maybe even more Evan

Carter this year could give them three pretty significant upgrades across this position player group. Dude, are they the most yo-yo-y team in baseball? I think because of the health, right? We started talking about it even when they signed DeGrom and even Seager. For big money free agents they brought in in recent years, they took on some risk, like some significant risk. I guess you could say that on the hitting side too,

because they gave a lot of money to Simeon and Seager, who are by older and by definition, gonna have down seasons and hurt seasons. That's interesting. I hadn't thought about it in that way, but they were bad last year. Do you know how bad they were last year? I'm not even looking at wins.

I'm just saying they had the 24th best pitching staff by war. And by batting, they were the 20, no, that's not even right there. They were 22nd by batting, they were the 20, no, that's not even right there. They were 22nd by batting. And by fielding, they were eight. They were okay in fielding. Why do they do this? Maybe it is the free agency thing.

Maybe it is the injury thing. But when I look at this team going forward for this year, I think that they might be the biggest threat to the the Astros dynasty here. When I look at this team, I see a team that has coverage in case people are hurt. Like I think Ezekiel Duran and Josh Smith are one of the best depth duos in the game. And they can play anywhere on the field and be acceptable. And I know that doesn't sound super exciting, but that's super exciting,

especially since they're lefty righty duo that can kind of step in and platoon for people. That's what's needed. Or if someone's hurt for a while, they can play anywhere. And that is such good spackle for the roster. And on the starting pitcher side, I think at this point you've pushed, you know, guys like John Gray and Tyler Malley into,

and Cody Bradford into spackled positions, right? You're hoping that the health of DeGrom and Rocker at the top is what makes you go, but if there is a moment where they need a blow, you actually have over time developed recent, like decent starting pitcher depth. So this is the kind of team that looks like it's spent last year hurting. And it also spent last year thinking about what to do, you know, to cover

for when those things are hurting and to get ready for de Graan's return, basically. Yeah. And they've got another pitching prospect who might not be that far away in Alejandro Rosario. I just am curious to see how fast they actually want to move him. He got to high A in 2024, but he's a college guy they got in the 2023 draft.

He's moving up a lot of prospect lists. So maybe we see him by the end of the year as well. And you get a lot more ceiling at the top of this group. You take some of the veterans, push them into bulk roles over the course of the year, maybe turn them into long relievers eventually. But I agree with you as far as the yo-yo and the range of outcomes. I think the move they made that at first I kind of shrugged off and was like, yeah, okay,

it makes them maybe a little better or gives them cover against the possibility of Josh Young having more health issues was the addition of Jake Berger. I took a look at Jake Berger's hard hit rate for his entire career, just the rolling 15 game average. We talk about these all the time on the show, a really helpful thing you can look at over fan graphs. You'll see a dip in the first part of 2024. And Jake Berger had an intercostal strain.

And you'll see once he got healthy, the hard hit rate came back, right? And I think what we're looking at is an underrated power hitter. I think we're looking at a guy that's more of a 35 to 40 homer threat on an annual basis. And even though the plate skills are not what you necessarily would draw up if you were trying to make the perfect power hitter, I think he's going to do enough damage, at least for these next couple of seasons, where the Rangers are gonna look really sharp for making this trade. Like they might be the kind of team that will never extend Jake Berger, they would never sign a player like this in free agency, but when you can go year to year for a guy going

through arbitration, I think you take the power on the cheap and I think they're gonna be handsomely rewarded for it. Yeah, he's an underrated athlete too, you know he's 66 percentile for running speed. He's faster than Willie Adamis. That is surprising. Yeah, what's also interesting is he's maintained that running speed even with the intercostal strain, he's maintained that so he hasn't hit some sort of beer

league slugger decline even though like honestly sometimes looks a little bit like that. Sure, four or five years from now. Not trying to body shame. Yeah, but like he does not look as athletic as he is. And I think he does add a power dimension that they were lacking a little bit. Down table, down line up. I don't know that he's going to be one of the top four hitters on this squad, but having

him as the number five is pretty fun because the five spot in the lineup to have a guy who can just hit a homer at any moment, that's almost ideal. To alternate down lineup, you kind of want to alternate power guys and contact guys, just ways to drive the top of the lineup in. I think Wyatt Langford took a real step forward last year. We already highlighted a great piece by Michael Rosen on Fangraphs about how Wyatt Langford stood more upright in the second half, became less scoopy, and was able to cover all parts of the zone with power and was, I think, one of the top three position players by war in the second half

last year. And I think that speaks well to his game, which is he is really, like, sort of polished. He's really good at everything. And you may reach for more exciting players that have top-end tools. I think of, you know, maybe comparing him to like a Churio or a Merrill or something like, I think they're all almost of equal quality, but Langford may have the the highest floor of them all because I think he's always going to battle in plate appearances, always going to have a high walk rate, always going to have a low strikeout rate, always going to have enough power, enough speed, enough defense.

He may outwar them, you know, just with his different combination. It may be harder because he's not a center fielder and you know, maybe Merrill just takes that based on that. But Langford is, I think, of that quality. And to have a guy like that join with your aging hitters that are still good. I think adds a dimension that's that's great. And Evan Carter, you know, I do think he has some flaws. I'm not sure he hits the ball as hard as Langford, but he can get on base.

He may be a platoon guy, but you still have the already to various. So like this is a pretty good lineup that has alternating power and contact and patience. A lot of different aspects to it. It's a diverse lineup in terms of approaches and handedness. And like I said before, it has pretty good backups in Smith and Duran. Yeah. The other question I have for you thinking about this lineup is Chuck Peterson. He doesn't really play the field anymore at all, but he's a mashing DH on the big side

of a platoon projected to be 26% better than league average by WRC plus from the bat X is a player like Peterson. And I think the Tigers, you could say the same thing similar about Kerry Carpenter, although Carpenter can play a bit more in the outfield at the stage of his career. Is this a great use of a roster spot relative to cost where war won't capture the impact of having a player that's that dangerous at the plate on your roster. In the starting lineup, 75% of the time, then available off the bench when you face a left-handed starter at the most critical juncture in the middle or late innings.

I'm starting to think this is one little weak spot with war and how we think about players and how they're valued. Yeah, I think generally one of the things about war is that it assumes a singular replacement level. And of course it does, because it's a construct. It's a way of thinking about baseball. It's not necessarily particular to your situation. So if you think you can turn out Durans and Smiths, right? And so you think your replacement level is above zero.

You think, at the very worst, I've got a Smith and Durand type at the ready who's kind of like a one win, one and a half win player, you know, that changes your concept of replacement level. It also changes your concept of like how important is Peterson's fielding to me if I have these other two pieces that I can move around to play any position, right? And so, you know, there are ways that players are fits. And then lastly, one thing that war doesn't necessarily account for, which I believe is true, is that DHing is a skill. And if DHing is a skill, what that means is

there is a pinch hitter penalty, a DH penalty. Being on the bench, you're supposed to be 10% worse than than if you've been playing in the field I don't think that's true for everybody you know and I think that certain players figure out how to stay engaged in the game or sometimes it just seems like jock and it doesn't matter I don't know maybe he's playing the David Ortiz game and he's super cerebral but like I don't know my vibe from him is he doesn't care. He just gets in there and he's just trying to yank that ball down the line for Homer. He doesn't care who's pitching, doesn't care what's going on. Maybe my vibe is wrong. He doesn't really connect with media, so it's hard to tell. But that's my vibe

on him is that he kind of, the idea of like rolling out of bed. Okay. And like hitting homers. That's my vibe of it. It doesn't look good body-wise. Anyway, so if he has that skill, if he has that DH-ing skill, then we're probably penalizing too much defensively in war and we're not giving him enough credit for having this skill that is hard to capture. So yeah, I think there's a couple ways

that you can make the case that you're making. It's the season to shop new styles, electronics, and definitely a holiday trip. And what if each time you made a purchase, you got a little something back? With Rakuten, you can earn cash back on just about anything you buy from over 750 stores. So if you're looking to buy a new phone, clothes, skincare, or a getaway, well, you can get cash back. So treat yourself, family, and friends and book that holiday trip now. Start getting cash back today by joining Rakuten. It's free and easy to use and you can get cash back deposited into your PayPal account or sent to you as a check. It's the smartest way to shop, plain and simple. Start your shopping at racqueton.ca

or get the Racketin app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A. Hi, it's Alexa Weibel from New York Times Cooking. We've got tons of easy weeknight recipes and I'm gonna make two of my favorites for you today. For my five ingredient creamy miso pasta, you just take your starchy pasta water, whisk it together with a little bit of miso and butter

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throw them in the oven. By the time they're done, your sauce is ready, you've chopped your cabbage, and you're ready to assemble. It feels crazy that something that tastes this complex and looks this colorful and beautiful is actually really easy to make and takes just 20 minutes of active time. It's just delicious.

New York Times Cooking has you covered with easy dishes for busy weeknights. Find these recipes and more at NYTCooking.com. Smells so good. We talked about the pitching a little bit with Ivaldi back, I think that's an important glue guy, middle of the rotation, maybe tech cling on paper, a number two starter,

at least to start the year behind de Grom. Tyler Malley removed from Tommy John maybe gets a little more stuff back with the early results by stuff were not great So there's some questions to be answered there. There's a piece by Jeff Zimmerman that your third Start back from the IL and so he has a season off So that's why it's a little bit confounding But if Tyler Malley had those three starts in April coming back from injury, then that would have predicted his fastball velocity for the rest of the season with like an 80, 90% accuracy.

So yes, he has the off season, and he could maybe recapture it, maybe he's at hard at work, maybe he's gonna come back with more V-Low, so there's a little bit more of a question there, but he did not come back with his stuff. And so he is low on my rankings and conversely I have Jack Leiter for more innings than Tyler Malley because I like Jack Leiter

and I think that yes he doesn't have good command but he has top shelf stuff and I think at some point they're just going to turn to the guy with top shelf stuff. And of course we saw a great season in the minors from Kumar Rocker debuted at the end of the year and He's gonna be important. I think to their success this year as well I think there's a good chance he ends up being their second or third best starter behind to go I'm assuming to grow up stays healthy projecting innings for him is difficult I had a hard time with it. It has very few innings in his pocket, but you don't know

Maybe the Rangers are like hey, this is our year You know I don't know how they might maybe they play some games where he's not in the opening day rotation because they're trying to push some of those innings to October but I don't know I don't know how many innings is gonna have this year I think 137 sounds very optimistic as that's what we're looking at right now both Mallee and John Gray are projected for 148 tied for third behind Ivaldi and DeGrom and there's been some rumblings lately that John Gray might be

considered for the bullpen as a possible closer, which would be exciting. I mentioned the rebuilt bullpen before. We've sort of landed on Robert Garcia as the reliever we like the most of the bunch, but they got Chris Martin, they got Josh Spores eventually back in the mix there. That's more of a longer term play. I think Spores is coming back from another injury,

but how would Gray kind of fit into this picture? We talk all the time about teams taking relievers, making them starters, how that impacts your stuff number because it brings down your fastball velocity in particular. But what about going the other way? Would John Gray actually be a really good high leverage reliever if the Rangers felt they had enough depth with guys like Cody Bradford and Dane Dunning, possibly being the glue guys in the rotation. As a sort of rule across the board, we came up with sort of five to seven points as of stuff plus as the adjustment. Right now, John Gray has a 91 stuff plus, so he would still sort of just enter the mix and not necessarily dominate it.

But that's a general rule. The general rule for adding velocity is like a couple ticks, right? We know that there are some that are just way beyond that. There's some guys who've gone to the pen and they throw so much harder than they threw, you know, as starters. And so if John Grey goes to the pen and sits, you know, 98, he's been sitting 95, 95, 96 the last three years. If he sits 98, then a lot of the shape problems on his fastball start to become less important and all those other things he's been doing to try and, you know, make things work like throwing the curve ball on the change, he doesn't have to do that anymore. And he becomes that fastball slider guy that he is at his heart heart and he could really take to it

So the another way I see it is like remember those first two outings in spring where they just go for an inning or two if John Grey is like pumping 98s pumping hundos like I Bite pull him aside and be like if you're into this let's do it It sounds like he is on board with that sort of usage It could be kind of a big second act for his career. It might be the kind of thing that gives him three or four years as a eight figure reliever. That could easily happen with the core skill.

At some point, it actually becomes a good financial decision. If you're good enough, you get those one in 10, one in 15s that like Max Scherzer just got and like, you know, if you're good enough. But I think if John Gray is a free agent right now, he wouldn't get the 1 in 15. Probably not. He'd probably get just a bit less than that because of all the injuries he has dealt with. But if he came out as a closer, he could get 3 in 30. Yeah, if he showed he was that effective with the extra VELO.

Yeah, I am with you on a projection like that for him. As far as the wind projection goes from Pekota, 89.9 is the total as we sit here on Wednesday morning, too hot, too cold, or just right for the Rangers. I mean, this is the weird thing about like, was it sort of probabilistic thinking. I would say it's just right. However, I would also say it is completely wrong.

It's not gonna be that. It's gonna be 82 or it's going to be 93. Like I think this is a real boomer bus team. I think this there's a lot of stuff that could really come together and that you could be like they could they could win it all this year. Don't you think like they could win it all this year to Graham and Rocker and Yvoldy is like the three and Jack lighter is like a super sub in October. And like, you know what I mean?

Like, I don't know, this could be this could definitely win it all or that bullpen is terrible Simeon finally gets hurt for the first time you know Seeger's hurt again Langford has a sort of sophomore slump whatever it is you know there's a lot of ways that can go the other way yeah I had this down as a just right I agree with the lean because of the injury risk especially it seems like it's elevated for some pretty important guys. They could be a lot better than this. They could be surprisingly worse,

but I do feel like the number is just right. Spoiler alert, I kinda felt like Picotta nailed the AL West overall when I was looking at the numbers getting ready for this episode. So they have the Rangers winning it. They do, they actually have the Rangers winning the division. But it's clearly a three team cluster

based on their numbers. Pretty tight because over at Fangrass it's one win. It's like 84, 84, and 85. Yeah, 89, nine, 87, five, 86, four. And the 86, four belongs to the Seattle Mariners. And the big question in Seattle is can they hit enough to support the elite arms they have? I mean the the rotations phenomenal.

I think there are some questions maybe about the bullpen depth but I think this is one of the things that Jerry DePoto has done very well the course of his time there that front office has generally found relievers pretty effectively the ballpark helps a little bit but I don't think it's only the ballpark. Their off season has been strange, man. In, Donovan Solano, back on a new deal, Jorge Polanco, out Josh Rojas. I mean, that's quiet. And it's kind of like the AJ Preller thing where you're like, wow, that's too quiet

for this Mariners team. I think they are also limited financially with a hard budget cap in a similar possible way. Yeah, and one thing I talked about at PitchCon on the off-season grades panel with Justin Mason and Brent Hershey was that- Can you not sort this by spilling bases? I don't wanna see Victor Rolos at the top the whole time.

I trolled myself, I didn't even do that on purpose. Why did I do that? There we go. Everything's back in its right place. We're sorted by plate appearances again. But I did say that when we're grading an off season, you can end up with a lower grade if you made a move that helps you beyond the current season

at the trade deadline. And the Mariners, in defense of them, did do that with Randy Rosarena, right? It wasn't a rental. And you could still be mad as a Mariners fan. But you should acknowledge they did trade for a guy that I think does make their lineup better.

I think by projections is probably their third or fourth best hitter by WRC Plus, and one of the guys ahead of them doesn't play every day. If you give Victor Robles either 99 WRC production, let's just give him 100. If you do that, I think people would be very surprised to hear that they have eight hitters that project to be average or better.

Yeah, I mean, I'm surprised, and I've been staring at this for more than a day. Like, I'm looking at it like, is this right? Is this math right? Is the bad X okay? Is the bad X under the weather? Like, what's the cause here? Obviously, you've got Julio Rodriguez at the top.

That's a superstar, that's great, you have that. Cal Raleigh mashes behind the plate, that helps. We talked about that when we were describing how bad the infield was just a few weeks ago. It's like, well have that. Cal Raleigh, mash is behind the plate, that helps. We talked about that when we were describing how bad the infield was just a few weeks ago. It's like, well, your catcher's really good, so that helps offset. Your center fielder's really good. You know, like, they are good in some key spots.

Yeah, JP Crawford's a little underrated. It's not the 25 homer, 10 steal shortstop that you want, but he plays, he's fine, he gets on base and plays a decent shortstop, but there's nothing wrong with him. Hopefully okay, decent defense this year. He's had very sort of up and down defense. Yeah, so you start to look and say, okay, this actually holds up fine.

It's not, is this lineup, is this collection of position players, given the holes we described in the Astros outfield, is this lineup that much different than Houston's in terms of overall quality? Maybe it's got some more noise in it because of the health concerns of a guy like Polanco, who's projected to be league average, even Victor Robles, his own health concerns, I think are significant. A Rosarena being a kind of a volatile player last year, especially like there are more questions maybe because of who the players are.

But when you look at the raw numbers, it doesn't look that different except for the fact that Jordan Alvarez has a better offensive projected ceiling than Julio. I'm not as hyperbolic about it. I don't think this is necessarily the worst infield in baseball. It has that sort of mirror-like quality to the Astros. It's like, okay, you have the bad outfield,

we have the bad infield. Yeah. I think in particular, this infield is the weakest at second and third third and that was something I highlighted in my pieces over the offseason. Getting Polanco back is good. I did want to say real quick one thing that we talked a lot about the park factors there and there's been some good work by Leakey on Twitter and, and, um, uh, Blue Sky.

And one thing that he pointed out, there's two things that are interesting to Jorge Polanco. One is that it's a function of light. It has something to do with the setting sun. And so he found that there is a park factor that if you account for stuff and everything, like the quality of the batter, the gathering pitch, you can find a park factor that has a time factor to it. So there's a certain time of the day where it's worse. And this is what's interesting to Jorge Blanco.

He found that people who come back to it, second, third year players, people who have played there for a while, do better in that situation than people who are, who have played there for a while, do better in that situation than people who were there for the first time. And you saw Jorge Polanco, yes, there was a bit of injury associated with, but you saw him got better over the course of the season, even at home. And so you have a little bit more hope bringing Polanco back than you would bringing someone

of sort of equal kind of league average-ish talent in because they may just be like oh crap what is this sunlight batters eye combination thing that's going on so you know as bad as it may look with Jorge Polanco he was good in the second half last year and he may be more equipped to handle the particulars there Luke Railey was pretty good last year just as is. You know, and if he's more comfortable with it this year, that's great.

He's an athlete. He is a runner in it with an arm and he can hit the ball hard. He just can't hit lefties, but he's like their Jock Peterson in a way, you know, except he can play at first at least. So I like some of the pieces. We talked about Ryan Bliss.

Cole Young is probably a little bit more interesting to me, but also has that ability to play short, so he may be their shortstop of the future. But between Young and Bliss and Locklear, they do have some young guys coming up that could patch holes. Let me ask you this, just in terms of this year's talent, would you rather have Young, Locklear, and Bliss or Josh Smith and Ezekiel Duran? Probably Smith and Duran. I mean, Smith was really good in the first half last year, and the defensive versatility is huge, but yeah, the long-term implications.

I think Cole Young's going to be a nice player. I think he's probably the guy that has the most ceiling out of the group, where maybe by the second half, he's got a regular role. It's interesting you mentioned the second year thing. I do think the park is even worse for righties than lefties just based on the guys that have struggled there historically. Mitch Hanniger was brutal last year, or not Mitch Hanniger, Mitch Garver was kind of brutal last year.

Garver has had a really oscillating career. Yeah, he's been up and down anyway. He could actually get it figured out this year. If he can see the ball better, get back to more of a 26%, 28% strikeout level and gets the power back in there. I mean, he was a 140 WRC hitter in 2023. Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's worth the gamble

where he's going in deep enough leagues. I don't know if you're talking about a 10 team fantasy league sort of player, but Garver could actually bounce back and it wouldn't be that much of a surprise given the overall body of work for his career. The strength of this team though continues to be its pitching, right? You had Logan Gilbert,

Luis Castillo didn't get traded, George Kirby really the one, two with Gilbert, Bryce Miller, Brian Wu, I mean it's a phenomenal group and they have a little bit of depth too if they were to lose a starter, but as far as rotations go, it's hard to ask for a whole lot more.

The only thing is that I don't like their depth. You don't like the depth at all? I don't really like Emerson Hancock and I can't even, Trent Thornton, what's their depth? Yeah, Hancock's the first name that comes to mind. So maybe that's Logan Evans, kind of interesting. Oh, Logan Evans actually, yeah. And he could develop, he's close.

So yeah, okay, that's okay. The other thing is, you know Logan Gilbert throws really close to his max Bryce Miller is a reliever that throws really close to his max Brian Wu has had a lot of injury that it none of it's a bit of the big one, you know It's always been like oh the hamstring or the back It's you know So these little things that have kept him from from adding And maybe they've been so good with the preventative maintenance that he's just gonna be fine. But he also strikes me as a little bit slight

in terms of just his body. So I do think if you tell the story of the Mariners falling apart this year, it has to do with injury and the rotation. Multiple pitching injuries becoming a big part of the problem. But I think Evans and Hancock has like a six, seven. That's good enough when you're one through five is as good.

If you lose two or three of those guys to major injuries, which would be true of any team, right? It would be devastating for them. But so much of their team is built on pitching and run prevention. We'll have to see how they put the pieces together. And now you talked about Andres Munoz, someone you really like this year.

They do use him a little more flexibly than a traditional closer. That's still part of the equation. But how do you feel about their bullpen? Do you think it has taken a small step back or do you think it is one of the top 10 bullpens in baseball right now? I think it's really weird that it doesn't register as a top 10 bullpen right now. It's like middle of the pack and 15th or so.

When I look at the collection of pitchers that they have in their bullpen, I think this could be an awesome bullpen. I mean, I really like Gregory Santos. Matt Brash is going to come back at some point. Trent Thornton has been fine as a reliever and Munoz is amazing. So, you know, you're already kind of three or four deep with really good pictures. And they have a real good sense of like how to optimizeers based on their stuff plus and based on their characteristics. So I don't know who else will step forward.

Maybe Evans, this is where Evans makes his biggest impact. I mean, there's some who think that he's headed towards being a reliever anyway, but I generally have a lot of faith in Mariners pitching coaching and pitching development and their ability to put together a really good bullpen. So I think they'll be better than 15th for sure. All right before we get to the win total projection I had a fun fact prepared for

the Mariners. Victor Robles has 56 barrels in 2096 career plate appearances in the big leagues. 17 players in the big leagues had more than 56 barrels last season alone. So I just want to put that out there. Just, just remember this content for the, you're drafting speed and average. Hopefully he's a good defender. Real life value might be fine, but that power we saw in 2019 with the super happy fun ball, the 17 homers probably will never happen again.

So just temper the enthusiasm I finally have for years and years of getting it wrong with Victor Robles. 86.4 is the win total from Pocota for these Mariners. Too hot, too cold, or just right? Too hot? Don't hate me, Seattle, sorry. At the end of this is another just right. The lineup's not as bad as people make it out to be,

including me. I've come to a place where- I feel better though if they just had like impact offensive prospect that like, you could be like, oh, this guy's gonna come up and be great. You can do that a little bit more with Rangers, right? When you're talking about like Langford and Carter.

Yeah, well that's one of those areas too where if Colt Emerson were ready right now, it'd be like, oh, okay. There's the guy, he's a little further away than Cole Young though, so then you have that. God, it's probably, maybe August, but you wouldn't see him before then. That'd be a pretty aggressive ascent

through the remaining levels of the minors if it plays out. But I think it's just right. I think the top three in this division are absolutely as close as Bacota has laid them out up to this point. Let's get to the A's, where we get a ton of questions in our Discord about the move out of the Colosseum into the ballpark in Sacramento.

I know you talked about that with Jason Collette and Justin Mason on the Friday show. It's neutral for the PCL, just to give everybody a refresher, which probably means it's much more hitter friendly to the Oakland Colosseum. And just how much more hitter friendly, that's still a little bit up in the air. We did get a follow up question as to whether or not

that would be factored into any projection sets already. And my lean is probably not because it's pretty significant manual adjustment. I know that the Bat-X does a lot with park factors because Derek Hardy models that that stuff really really well But that's an area where I do think what you see on the screen May not always be as accurate as you'd like it to be given some of the uncertainty I would venture a guess and I should know this but I would venture a guess that

Derek Hardie has modeled this and Because we do have minor league park factors. And if you look at their starting pitchers, the Bat-X has everybody over 4.5 ERA. And I mean everybody, and including people that I like. They just happen to have a four or five. So I kind of think this is modeling towards, you know, an offensive because, you know, they have Jeffrey Springs, the bat has Jeffrey Springs with a four or five ERA, but still a one six war, right?

So they're not saying that they're terrible. So I'm reading between the lines and saying that this is a park factor situation. There is some guessing and you may notice that the bat in general seems to have a slightly higher offensive environment across the board and there is some guessing on how the ball will play season to season. Oh, we're back on that again. Yeah, you're right. It's that time of year. I don't really want to talk about that, it's true, but I just want to say that the bat has I think from what I've talked to about Derek Hart about this he kind of regresses offensive environments itself.

Like he, he projects the offensive environment, which is a smart way to do it, of course, because we don't know exactly, we know that there's been these swings in the offensive environment. So, you know, but there is a certain amount of guesswork when it comes to even the park factors, because the park factors are also minor league players playing in a minor league park. What happens if everybody hits the ball two miles an hour harder on average? How does that park play?

Right. That also is a moving target. Yes. Yeah. So I think this will be a boon for the offensive guys. What I have found with the pitching guys and we can talk about them more specifically in a second, but just what I found with the pitching guys is they are good sleepers in super deep leagues. I don't like if you're in a 10-team league I don't think you want a

single athletic starter and E12 gets really tight but I start to really like them in draft and holes and 15-team bench and stuff like that. AL only yeah there's there's definitely some spots where they make a lot more sense. Maybe some overcorrection happening in the deeper leagues trying to account for how Sacramento's ballpark is going to play with big league players in it. The hitter snapshot though,

I think there's more help coming. We saw the Lawrence Butler breakout a year ago. We saw J.J. Bladet take a step forward. Brent Rooker had a career year. Tyler Soderstrom was interesting in the second half. Shea Langelier's got better. Like a lot of hitters got better. We're putting together a lineup, yeah.

Zach Galoff was sort of the exception, the guy that looked so good in the second half of 2023. And I think he was going through some swing adjustments and had an injury. So a tough season all around for Galoff. And there might be some questions just related to like, what do you think he's going to be long term anyway and trying to factor that in it's pretty tough but they may have a full season of Jacob Wilson at shortstop. Nick Kurtz their first rounder last year could be on the big league roster for a significant portion of this year and Colby Thomas could enter the corner outfield mix for them too so there could be a little more depth than what you see when you look at the projections as they stand right

now. The free agent moves, Gio Urshela was basically it, they lost Abraham Toro, so Urshela is a nice infield glove but not necessarily a guy that you're going to play every single day. I think he's a little more of a super sub as this roster keeps getting better. They made the move to get Jeffrey Springs via trade that you alluded to before and then signed Luis Severino in free agency. Sean Newcomb and Austin Adams are out and they added Jose Leclerc to the bullpen in free agency as well.

So more additions on the pitching side with the assumption that the position player prospects that are knocking on the door are going to have prominent roles probably by the end of the year. I wanted to ask you about Lawrence Butler specifically, right, third highest playing time projection on the screen 25 homers from the bat X

244 305 442 not a great slash line, but still 14% better than league average and You've talked about Butler having to tweak his approach because he was being pitched differently during that breakout last year And if you take a look at what his O swing percentage has done, the amount he has chased during his time in the big leagues, it has been a little bit of a wild ride. It's been a constant moving target. The K rates have been up and down to pretty extreme degrees. Where's the baseline for Lawrence Butler when the dust settles

as the adjustment phase continues to play out? Are you seeing someone that you're actually trusting to continue building on the breakout or do you think we're gonna get a little bit of pullback compared to what he was doing in the second half when he was basically a top 10 player? It's wild, his O-swing, it's like, you know, there are times when he has the rolling O-swing

down to 25% and then there's these three peaks in his career which has been pretty short so far where he's rolling at 40%. And so what I see here is someone that can be pitched to and that pitchers figure out at regular intervals and then he makes an adjustment. And I see three separate adjustments

that's led to three separate hot streaks for him. So maybe there's a little streakiness to him but but I do want to point out that I did a piece once about how volatility, and this is a measure of volatility, is the difference between those peaks and valleys in his Wobba, the blue line if you're looking on YouTube. And Bill Petty did this piece about volatility and he measured it and he said that strikeout rate is possibly related to volatility. So guys who strike out a lot, we'll see bigger peaks and valleys. That makes sense.

And walk rate is a little bit related to it because if you have a high walk rate that you can produce on the field, even when you're not doing other things, you know, a high walk rate will lead to lower volatility. But the most interesting thing that I found from his research was that if you age volatility, if you look at volatility over time, it just goes down. And part of that is because the peaks aren't there so much. But the other part of that is the valleys aren't there so much.

And players figure out, if he's made three adjustments and you see those three different peaks, you know, and three different ways that pitchers were pitching him that were working and then stop working. If he's made those three adjustments, those three adjustments are in his bag. You know what three different ways that pitchers were pitching him that were that were working and then stop working If he's made those three adjustments, those three adjustments are in his bag You know what I mean? Like he he could be like, oh This guy's trying to go high in the zone on me and that was working for a while But I got a little flat swing. I can just push this out to right field or whatever You know what I mean or push this out to left field?

And so, you know He has these different tricks in his bag and what I found was that the hitters over time as they get older, and this is actually mirrored in psychology research, which is that we get better at being happy over time because we have coping mechanisms. People make fun of coping mechanisms, but they are absolutely how we get better at being adults.

You know, like we just know, oh, I need to go work out. You know? I gotta get some ice cream. Whatever it is, and people may make fun of that, but it works. It's a way for us to soothe ourselves. Oh, I just need to sit in front of the TV for an hour and just not think about things.

You know, we have these mechanisms that make us feel better and they do absolutely level our lives out in some way butlers You know up and downs have something to do with that now It could be another down near maybe he has a down half and everyone's that I told you so but I think even if he Has a down half he's gonna have a great second half. He's shown three different separate adjustments a lot of ways for him to be valuable I'd like to see that at twenty five point two percentRate is not a bad projection at all in that regard. So that's pretty encouraging for Lawrence Butler. The bad at ball V-Lows are pretty good.

Like, I mean, they're not amazing. He's not going to be like an Alvarez type or something. He's not going to just hit tons and tons of homers. Maybe the 25 homer projection is aggressive depending on how the park plays. But with an 11% barrel rate and like a 112 max EV, he has power. One thing that I'm looking at with these projections is the BAPIPS and the batting averages

that are right next to each other. I wonder if they're just low across the board because even if it's not necessarily a huge power boost, it's just a slight power boost or whatever, a decent but not overwhelming home run boost, ball's in play. I just expect balls in play to be different overall for the Oakland hitters,

and I think maybe they're under-projected by average as a result of Babbitt coming out low. He hits the ball hard and he's not a 50% fly ball guy, and he's not a 50% pull guy. So if you put those things together, you would expect maybe a bad pip over 300. Only Zips has a 303 for him. I think he'll have better than a 250 average.

And as I mentioned, like, you know, 256 or whatever, like is the kind of the target for 15 teamers to be in the top three to four spots in standings, I think for least in draft and hold. So I actually think that he will be a net neutral when it comes to batting average. The pitching, as you mentioned before, has some big questions.

I mean, Luis Severino leaving city field for half of his starts, going back into a more hitter friendly environment. Of course, he did it for the beginning of his career at Yankee Stadium. It's gonna make it tough for him to repeat the ratios that he delivered a year ago, but he's important as far as eating up innings

for this group. Springs, we talked about him on our pitching preview. The stuff just wasn't back post-injury, so I'd really want to watch him closely in spring training before putting any sort of expectation for him to have a sub-four ERA again out there. Osvaldo Bido is someone I think you've grown to like over time. It's questionable command, but definitely a deep enough arsenal with good enough stuff where he could still take another step forward and really build upon what he did last year. Yeah, I mean, the fastball 107 stuff plus slider 112 stuff plus cutter 117 stuff plus sinker 108 stuff plus like he has a wide arsenal. And you know, in terms of command, it hasn't shown in poor walk rates in the miners. You know, in terms of command, it hasn't shown in poor walk rates in the miners.

LocationPlus did say he was terrible last year, 88, and you know, maybe that played out in his walk rate a little bit, but I would just assume that he's going to be pretty good. I think he's all the building blocks are there. You are looking at the oopsie projections when you're looking at these. These are going to be the most positive for pitchers with good stuff. Plus if you scroll back up again, just real quick, that Severino projection for a 399 ERA is the only projection for under four. And so even when I was doing my rankings, even though he had that projection, I gave

him a little bit of a softer ranking than you might expect given that ERA, just to represent the risk that he's oscillated some in his career. The strikeout rate wasn't great last year, even though he's better. He has become more of a wide arsenal guy thanks to the Mets. And maybe that'll stick, but that's a soft three nine nine. I don't really believe in that. Jeffrey Springs, Velo and stuff didn't come back. So I don't really believe the three nine seven projection from either.

JP Sears by the baseball perspective, arsenal metrics has one of the, like the smallest arsenals in terms of like space it takes up in terms of velocity and shape differentials. And I don't think he's a great one. So for me, it's Spence and Bideaux and it's those guys as, you know, you're betting on a wide arsenal with some interesting stuff, characteristics, hoping that the park doesn't play as bad and you're taking them in places where you're not investing a lot. If me liking Bideaux makes him go up too high, then just let them go. You know what I mean? Like this, that can happen. People pump up players. I do like Bideaux and Spence where they are now.

Good depth guys, I think for deep, deep leagues as you're building out that rotation Mason Miller We talked about on the reliever preview Maybe the best reliever in the game if you said he's gonna be healthy all year Then he'd probably be the first closer off the board a plus plus in terms of having a guy that's almost Untouchable at the end of a game the clerk gives them a little bit more than they've had Maybe a couple guys like Tyler Ferguson end up stepping up to give them a good A bullpen or at least a good A bridge to get to Mason Miller. But I could see their A relievers getting really overworked

and then I don't know if they have the depth of backfill effectively. I think that's something where the A's still need to find a little something. Oh, I don't know. You don't love Michelle O'Tonnes? Oh God. The model loves him, right?

The model loves a Tonjes, doesn't it? Oh yeah, yeah. But also just like if you love stuff with no idea where it's going, he's your guy. Yeah. So, I mean, and Leclerc used to be that, and he kind of mellowed a little bit over time, but there is certainly stuff in this bullpen finally.

I think Otanis, the dark horse, Leclerc is probably the first man up if Miller goes down. 70.7 is the win total projection from Picota. Too cold. Too cold on this one too, man. I think it comes from the core bats just being a little better and that young secondary supporting group coming up to,

they're gonna score runs. I don't know if they're gonna be good at preventing them, but generally I think they're gonna be good enough to exceed expectations Maybe get to that 76 77 win range. These are credible starting relievers If you're giving me a 70 win projection you're saying Like you're missing really big portions and if you look at each of their portion of their team They're like these are credible starting pitchers. This might be the worst aspect of their team, but they're credible

You know, this is way better than some of the rotations They've been thrown out there for the last couple years like I there for the finally some pitchers worst aspect of their team, but they're credible. You know, this is way better than some of the rotations they've been throwing out there for the last couple years. Like, they're finally some pitchers I like, you know what I mean? They've been throwing some rotations out there where you're just searching for a guy to circle. Yeah, that's true.

Even if you're worried about Severino and Springs, that's a better one too than what they've been trotting out as part of this kind of extended Rebuilding effort may still end up with Jordan Montgomery Yeah, yeah that good Let's close it out with the angels some changes here They were active to start the offseason and got on the board again this week with the addition of Kenley Jansen But the bats new faces include Jorge Saler young when Cata Travis Darno Kevin Newman Tim Anderson all kind of vying for jobs there. I mean Darno is a clear backup catcher, but Newman versus Anderson,

one of those guys could be the opening day shortstop. Out are Brandon Drury, Kevin Pilar, and Miguel Sano. Probably not going to miss anyone from that trio all that much. In on the pitching side, Yusei Kikuchi plus Kenley Jansen, Kyle Hendricks for some innings, out Patrick Sandoval and Griffin Canning. So they're making a lot of moves and we know they like to move prospects fast. So you could probably say Christian Moore is going to be in addition to this lineup at some point before the end of the season.

It's just a question of how quickly they're gonna move them up. There are underrated players on this squad. If you scroll up a little bit, might be able to see Mike Trout. You've heard of him probably. Yeah, there he is. A little bit old.

Because of playing time. I just traded for Joe Adele last night. It was actually kind of funny. I traded Kenley Jansen in a 20 team that we're in together now, Devils Rejects. I traded Kenley Jansen for Joe Adele late last night. It is an OPP league, so it's possible that Adele becomes part of a punt OVP effort on our side,

or he's just a bench guy. But we had Ryan Presley and Felix Bautista and we thought Joe Adele would be a better addition to our team. Also, I just want to point out that there's like a 5% chance that a 25-year-old Joe Adele scares pitchers into walking him. This is an actual thing that happens. You can hit the ball so hard that pitchers will walk you because they're scared of you. This is a thing that we've seen in the numbers. If you want a person who describes this in his career,

it is Chris Davis with a C. He did not have a great sense of where the zone was. Then he showed everybody that he could hit the crap out of the ball and they walked him for a while. And as soon as he started to not hit the crap out of the ball and they walked him for a while. And as soon as he started to not hit the crap out of the ball, the walk rate disappeared. You can even see it in Albert Pujols' career walk rate. So there's a chance that Joe Adele like walks 10%

of the time next year, just based on the fact that he's hitting 25 to 30 homers. That was part of the reason that we went and got him. I think in terms of like really good hitters that I would like to have on my team as building blocks, it's Logan Ohapi and Zach Neto. As veterans, I like Taylor Ward and Mike Trout, obviously. And then Jorge Slares, an underrated hitter.

So there are some aspects that I like. I just think that Nolan Shanuel is not a Major League First baseman. I think Ren Hefo is best categorized as a utility guy. Neto with the injury is gonna be tough early in the season and they really need somebody to step forward out of Joe Adele and Mickey Moniac beyond even what they've done

for this to be an actual lineup that people will be afraid of. And they need Mike Chott to be healthy for most of the year. I mean, that's an obvious one. Yeah, that's sort of the big one, right? It's like you look back at the last four seasons, Trout got to 499 played appearances in twenty twenty two, three sixty two in twenty twenty three, but under one fifty both in twenty twenty one and in twenty twenty four. So the further he moves into his thirties, the more questions you have

about his ability to stay on the field on a per game basis. The skills still look there from a power perspective, and even the speed last year he showed, he still can swipe bases. He was 6 for 7 as a base stealer in 29 games. So there could be a mostly vintage per game season from Trout. It's just like, do you project him for 125 games and say that's the ceiling? And that's it. I mean, the 111 with 478 plate appearances puts him seventh on the team in usage.

And that could be aggressive. I mean, I don't know. Like you said, that's like a 50-50 proposition. If he feels good, he's gonna be among, he'll be second on the team probably because of the way that everything else fits together. I do think that Neto shoulder injury is a bit of a mystery as far as the severity.

That's a big one for them because I think he's a really important player for them, both in the present and in the future. Some of the things Adele was doing last year were very interesting. I think he can wrestle away more than 440 plate appearances if he builds on that. He could end up being 100 plate appearances

light in this projection. That wouldn't be all that surprising. It's another one of those probabilistic things. I don't think there's any way he ends up with 440. It's more like of those probabilistic things. I don't think there's any way he ends up with 440. It's more like 600 or 300. You know what I mean? Like he's a right-hander with huge flaws, but huge sort of batted ball power.

So it's like, it's either gonna work or it's not. 440 is kind of like, what do you mean? He's gonna be in a big side platoon, but he's right-handed, like, what do you mean? What does 440 mean? Why are you taking him out of games? Like, what does that mean? I side platoon, but he's right handed, like, what do you mean? What does 440 mean? Why are you taking him out of games? Like, what does that mean? I don't know, does he hurt?

I don't know. It does reflect the fact that there's risk that he's just not good. Yeah, I do like this group of hitters better today than I did a year ago, so I think they're improved, at least on paper. I think they'll be improved by results. They're not gonna lose 100, I don't think.

He shouldn't lose 100. I think you can look at this team and say, hey, they might not be doing it the way a lot of other people would be doing it if they had the same resources, but give the people in charge credit for at least going out there and trying to get better. Because there are plenty of teams that don't do that

with the ways they spend. The pitching side of this team might have a little more room for some debate. When you start looking at the Angels, we were kind of bummed I think when Kakuchi landed there, but frankly, he gives them a kind of a soft ace, we'll call him, like a guy that when he's pitching well has shown that kind of ceiling. They definitely needed somebody like that atop the group. Tyler Anderson's season a year ago was a little underrated.

Jose Soriano has had multiple Tommy Johns, but he has electric stuff. So you at least have three quality starters up top that could be there. Do you know what they're doing? What do you think they're doing? The YOLO YOLO. You think you're gonna give them that much credit?

I mean, look, just look at the wars. Kikuchi three, Anderson 0.8, Soriano 2.1, Hendricks 0.7, Detmers 1.6. And then think about the players, like Soriano and Detmers represent upside. And to some extent, Kukuchi, Kukuchi changed his arsenal in Houston, right? And if those changes stick, that was the optimal arsenal, then he could have the best year of his career, which would be better than these projections. It'd be like a 3-5 with 13 wins, a bunch of

strikeouts. You'd be like a four-win player and they would look so smart for that signing. The downside is the command problems come back, the walk rate goes up, it was just a temporary adjustment that didn't stick. Soriano, 100 mile an hour sinker. He sat 99 plus last year with a splitter that looks good by the model and two breaking balls. Jose Soriano is one of my favorite sleepers. In fact, I was going to go with Spencer Argeti and I'm still haven't decided yet which one I'm going to do for the for the division. But Soriano, and Kyle Hendricks is like, that's one where I'm like, why? You're hoping for a lot of innings, but they were quick to make that move too. And it's like,

maybe you would have done better waiting it out Maybe Martin Perez would have been the better. What did they sign him for? Oh Man, he didn't get the he didn't get the full 15. No, no, he wasn't like I think it was more like six or five or six. Yeah, it was not a lot. Yeah Yeah, so I guess they just didn't want to spend in the 15s and they thought, you know, I don't know. I think I'd rather have Martine Perez. I definitely would. As far as the bullpen goes, the addition of Kenley Jansen

probably just takes a large chunk out of the projected saves you would have given to Ben Joyce, right? Even if Joyce ends up finishing the year with the job, it's hard to imagine that if the Angels have 35 or 40 saves in that bullpen this year, that Jansen doesn't get at least 20 of them. Oh, yeah. I think this is a classic start was Jansen end

with Joyce situation. Which just flips the ability to really draft Joyce in a lot of mixed leagues. In some deeper formats, you could still try to stash him away and get those saves later drafted hold. He's still there, but he's gonna fall a lot off of the ADP. Is their bullpen a little better overall by depth than expected? A Chase Zilsent at

least throws really hard and is kind of interesting. They've been piling up pitching prospects. A few of those guys could break through and maybe have greater roles. Robert Stevenson might be healthy in the second half. Free agent signing that didn't get the pitch last year because he was hurt but maybe there's a little more in this relief core also once we get to the middle point of the season at least. Yeah, I mean, if Stephenson's pitching with it, they've got 98 and 100 in setup.

Brock Burke is a decent lefty, and then Kenley Jansen is a credible veteran. So yeah, it's a pretty good, it's getting somewhere. Yeah. And you know, Kaden Dana is an interesting pitching prospect for them in the rotation. That was just amazing last year in the minors. You know, Stuff didn't love his overall arsenal,

but it did give him some credit for a good change up. And you know, it's 10 innings and I know stuff plus is supposed to be great in these things, but you know, to go from a 30% strikeout rate, 27% of AA to 15% in the majors just suggests to me that there could, could be something there. He's not going to, I'm not going to circle him as a, as somebody that I need to get or anything, but he does count as part of their backup plan. If Hendrix doesn't work out, you know, the King Dana is on that list.

And Aldo Gehry is on that list. And Koch Hanowitz, who has a super sinker, but can't strike anybody out, is on that list. So the depth is getting better. The bullpen is getting better. Everything's getting a little bit better over time. But you just wonder, would a different regime have turned this around quicker? And I always feel like when I talk about the Angels,

you have to grade the front office on the curve of working for Artie Moreno. The challenges that presents, how Artie wants things done, the areas where he will spend versus the areas he won't, I think that makes it a more difficult job than it actually should be. So that's kind of part of the equation for me too.

The not so fun fact about the Angels, only five teams have a lower playoff percentage than the Angels do. The Rockies, the White Sox, the Marlins, the Nats, and the A's. So that gives you an idea of how much the projections like this team as it is currently assembled, the win total is 73.4.

Nope, 74.7. The Jansen signings now factored and it's moved up since that happened. Too hot, too cold, or just right for these Angels? You know, one of the things that projection systems do is they push everybody towards the middle. And so they don't, they're usually not that great. That's part of why we thought the Dodgers were too cold

last year with their one on one projection. We thought this is a great team. It's going to it's going to push past. It's going to add the deadline. It's going to keep getting better. The Angels, you know, Fangrass has about 76. I see some nation sort of, you know, good team aspects to it. I could I would say like, you know, if I thought they were going to keep their team together and go for it, then I would say like, you know, if I thought they were gonna keep their team together and go for it,

then I would say too cold. But the reason I'm gonna say too hot is because I think they'll sell at the deadline. They won't have enough in the tank, they'll sell and the quality of the replacements won't be there to make them a team that's like kind of plucky with young players, right? Cause they've already rushed most of the prospects.

They're already there with the exception really of Christian Moore on the hitting side. So yeah, I'm with you on that overall take. They'll even begin to hear stuff about like, should you sell Trout at the deadline? And I bet you even Cucucci gets floated at the deadline. But then they'll end up just trading like Tyler Anderson if anybody wants him

and Kenny Jansen if anybody wants him and Jorge Soler and calling it a day. I mean, it's depressing. I hope I'm wrong, but I think that's been what's happened in Anaheim recently. A franchise in purgatory until there is an ownership change. I think that's the way to describe the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

They definitely are in Anaheim. They are not in Los Angeles. I know how maps work. They are not even the Los Angeles Angels to me. They're the Anaheim Angels. You will always be the Anaheim, they are not in Los Angeles. I know how maps work. They are not even the Los Angeles Angels to me, they're the Anaheim Angels. You will always be the Anaheim Angels. You can call yourself the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, but you are the Anaheim Angels.

All right, some fantasy favorites. I don't live in San Francisco. The fantasy favorites from this division as far as some sleepers, I'll start with a bat. I think Tyler Soderstrom is pretty interesting. His days behind the plate are probably over, but the strikeout rate dropped during his second run in the big leagues last year.

Excellent contact quality, hard hit rates close to 50%. The barrel rate's there, he's hitting the ball in the air. Think he's got a chance to stick in the middle third of that improving lineup as well. We talked about the park changes with the move to Sacramento. All signs point to Tyler Soderstrom being one of the more interesting

first base options where he goes kind of in that post-pick 250 range overall. Yeah, I love the bat a ball oomph, the bear away to 14.6 last year, and it's weird for me to see this collection of skills produce that bad of a batting average. I think he, and they're still projecting him for a 220, 230 batting average,

but he's not a 30% strikeout rate guy. He's not a 50% fly ball guy. He's not a 50% pull guy. And I don't, yes, he has poor speed, but you know, are the 260 babips he's getting based on that or minor league babips? Like I don't, I don't see where these are coming from unless does he have a really bad pop-up problem? Did I miss that? No, he doesn't even have a bad pop-up problem. I don't get it, dude

I don't I don't get those babbups. So, you know, there's 250 with 30 homers is within reach Yeah, love it. Love that call you got a sleeper back from this division Yeah, this comes from the fact that breakouts can come from anywhere. He's 27. He's boring There's not really a reason to call him a sleeper except that Jeremy Pena Hits homers steals bases, you know makes contact has enough batted ball power and Has a everyday job is a shortstop and is 27 I mean

These are these are also reasons that he could break out. And the last reason that is maybe the most important is that if you use Oopsie as a projection, he projects to be every bit as valuable as Matt McLean and CJ Abrams, and he goes 60 to 100 picks later than those two guys. Good oatmeal, I think is the way to describe him. Yeah, it's really hard sometimes to see the value of a guy who's like, oh, 260, 18, 18.

You're like, what's he do for me? A little bit everything, yes. He keeps the team on track to where it needs to go. And he's dropping for some reason, you know? Maybe some overall concerns about that Astros lineup just not being as good and the supporting cast dragging down the runs and RBI's a little bit. Maybe that's maybe people think the ceiling

isn't there anymore. That could be true too. Because he's played enough where he just hasn't broken out yet so people are like well that's it, this is it. You mentioned Cade and Dana in the Angels preview. I actually think he's kind of a good sleeper. They rushed him to the big leagues last year.

This is a very low to me call for a guy that was a prospect like on a lot of lists and probably still is he's still eligible. But he was 20 years old at double A last year and had a 20% strikeout minus walk percentage. So yeah, I know the model stuff didn't look good when he came up and he got pounded that the home run rate was through the roof and that limited sample. But 146 innings in the two levels last year, given the way that rotation is built, I have a hard time believing that Kaden Dana doesn't spend most of the year as a starter for the Angels.

Think it's an important part of what they're trying to accomplish there. So more for deeper leagues. I don't know if we're drafting Kaden Dana at 12-team mixed league, but I do think there's still a lot to like there despite the bumpy debut. Yeah, I'm gonna continue to give you guys shallower sleepers, I guess, than DVR on this episode.

I'm gonna give you Spencer Arragedi, who was in my... is he in my top 50? Where is he in my rankings? So he's definitely draftable, I think, in all leagues. I got him 61 in my ranks today Part of the reasoning is the model refresh really liked him and and fit better with his results on the field With an above-average fastball and elite curveball an average cutter and a good slider he has all that he needs for lefties and righties a 27 percent strikeout last year great last year for Spencer Argetti, that's a 17% K-BB. And the big flaws were walk rate and home run rate. The new model spits out a home run percentile, like how likely the shapes of your pitches are to give up home runs.

And he is actually below the, he has better than average home run suppression. Last year the average home runs per nine for a starting pitcher was 1.22. And the only projection system that says that Aragetti can do anything like that with his home run rate is oopsie. And it gives him a 394 ERA with a 25% strikeout rate. So that is absolutely Sleeperville in most leagues.

And I like him, circle him up. All right, I'm gonna put John Gray's name back out there as my sleeper reliever. He has to become a reliever for this to even come true, but I think the fact that he is on board of it and then seeing guys like Bradford and Dunning that they've leaned on for bulk in the past, thinking about Rocker and Leiter, the health of deGrom,

Malley being further removed from Tommy John surgery, Andy Valdi being back. I think they have enough starting pitching depth if they can make it through spring without some surprising injuries piling up to make that move and they can bump all those other new relievers down a chair. And this could be that second act for John Gray

where again, he sort of takes off. I think he could be a top 15, top 20 closer pretty easily if we knew he had the job. So I'm gonna put him into that sleeper relief picture category This is the division of the setup man for me and I'm going to waffle and give you five names But I the reason I think this is still valuable to people Even though we set up this whole thing just to make me make decisions that I would actually give this was your idea just to make me make decisions. I would actually give you one name. This was your idea.

But the problem is, I don't know that, you know, I can't tell you which of these guys are gonna get hurt or lose their jobs, probably Kenley Jansen, and so therefore, if I was pushed to give you one name, it's Ben Joyce. But I do think that this division has very clear second guys. And the second guys are Robert Garcia, Gregory Santos,

Ben Joyce, Brian Abreu and Jose Leclerc. They're very, I think it's very clear that those are the second guys. So if you want to take a second guy in saves and holes or a guy that might take the job if someone's hurt, it's very clear. If I had to pick one, it's Ben Joyce, he's fire, Ken Jensen's old, Ben Joyce is still worth picking in most leagues. All right.

I'll allow it because it made sense It was very concise and there's a lot of injury risk within that group That's the downside of Mason Miller like we talked about earlier as I said up top You can join the discord the link in the show description We get some hive mind rankings coming back out in about a week or so. We'll compile those So get your rankings in using the hive mind rankings channel You can find the link to all the forms, all the positions from the position previews. You can find Eno on Blue Sky, enoserus.bsky.social.

You can find me, dbr.bsky.social. Thanks to Brian Smith for putting this episode together. That is gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening.