Rates & Barrels - 2025 NL Central Team Previews

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

Eno and DVR return to their 2025 Team Previews Series in the NL Central. Can the Brewers continue to exceed projections? Who will emerge from the Cardinals' position player group to take on everyday roles as they try to identify their current core? Are the Cubs deserving of frontrunner status from 2025 projections? Will the Reds surprise us with better starting pitching than expected, but less production from their lineup? And, will the Pirates find enough steady bats to support their young aces? Rundown 3:44 2025 Milwaukee Brewers Preview 26:43 2025 St. Louis Cardinals Preview 42:06 2025 Chicago Cubs Preview 53:34 2025 Cincinnati Reds Preview 1:05:40 2025 Pittsburgh Pirates Preview 1:18:13 A Selection of Sleepers From the NL Central 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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slash connections. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Tuesday, February 18th. Derek Van Riper, EnoSaris here with you getting back into our team preview series. The focus for this episode will be the NL Central Americas Division, as I like to call it. You know, how'd the extra day off treat you? I saw a little Applani the Younger photo from you in our Discord. Yeah, it was my 17th wedding anniversary. Congratulations!

Yeah, we went out to a nice bite to eat, And then we went back to my local, which has been a bar that we've gone to for, I don't even want to say the number. Your bar has been there for 17 years, right? Yeah, but we've been together for longer than that. Yeah. So we've been going there for a long time since school. And we went and played darts. And there was no line. There was no hubbub about Planet of the Younger. It just happened to be on tap and I was like, okay, that's fun. So that was fun. I took my dad out to Point Reyes and so we did a nice hike on Saturday where it was like high fifties, not even that windy, super sunny, beautiful day out there. What I love about the Bay Area is that like, it was like an hour drive to an awesome

hike that was just beautiful. All sorts of birds everywhere. And the surf, I love the sound of the surf. It's super important to me. I don't know, from when I was I was born in Jamaica. So like, I don't know, the sound of the surf. It's super important to me. I don't know, from when I was born in Jamaica. So like, I don't know, the sound of surf is like, my body's like, ah, you know? You're wired for it. Yeah. Yeah. So that was good. We had a little bit of a rude awakening today with breakfast because, so we keep our oil in old milk containers, you know? Like we just, we need to put the oil somewhere. So we have old milk containers or old yogurt or whatever.

We'll just put the milk, we'll just put the old oil in there. And the cleaners came on Monday and they put the milk canister back into the fridge. And today my youngest son was serving himself cereal and poured, and it was the last of the crunch berries. And he poured oil all over it and was very upset. And it was a very upsetting moment. And I felt bad for him. We tried to try to make it better, but. It was a- Accidentalpranks.com.

Yeah, rude. I mean, it's Tuesday, it was a rude Monday morning experience. Not the way you wanna start your week after the long weekend, but it sounds like you had a good one. Good, the weather was nice for you. We're not getting great weather here,

so enjoy what you can if you're in a warmer part of the country. Join the Discord, you can find pictures of the beers that Eno drinks, you can have conversations about the teams that you root for, fantasy strategy, all sorts of good stuff in there. We'll get those Hivemind rankings out later this week. So if you haven't submitted your Hivemind positional rankings, go to the Hivemind rankings channel, drop those in,

we'll get those compiled in the next couple of days. Alright, let's get to it. Let's start at the top of the NL Central. We go by standings order from the previous season so we begin with the Brewers. I don't make the rules, no actually I do make the rules in this particular instance but that's how the whole series has been. The big question with the Brewers I think is can they beat their projections again? They were a pleasant surprise for a lot of people last year.

The expectation after trading away Corbin Burns, losing Craig Council, all those things that were swirling around this team is that they would take a step back and they didn't, they won the division comfortably and a lot went right for that to happen. But even some things went wrong that have carried over into 2025 a little bit. The status of Christian Jelic looks like it's heading in the right direction in the early days of spring training as he's recovering from the micro discectomy surgery that he had last summer.

But you still have a lot of questions. You look at who's in and who's out on this roster. Not much in terms of position players. You lose Willy Adames in free agency, which was a likely loss, I think, going into the offseason. And you really only have Caleb Durbin coming back as part of a trade that landed them Nester Cortez. So the position player group is a lot of holdovers and one pretty big pair of shoes to fill. I imagine some of their internal projection is we should have a healthy yellow all year, which could make a dent in some of what they lost from really a dom is.

But I think a lot of people like this team are going to have to say, where else does that extra production come from? Who else steps up? Is that another step forward from Jackson Churio? Is it someone in the infield mix taking another leap? Like, what do you think about this core group position players? Yeah, I don't know if you're going to put the the team, the batting projections up. But if you're going to do a rule of five on this team, I think you've got Churio Contreras Hoskins.

Maybe, maybe. I don't know if he's he's in. Maybe he's I mean, he's a he's a right hander, right? Yeah, he's he's a righty. Could lose some some time. He's in the middle of five. And then Yeah. He's a righty, could lose some, sometime against same-headed pitching. And then Christian Jelic is in the rule of five. So that's four. And that's why I think that there's such a huge burden on Joey Ortiz and

Garrett Mitchell, because I think between the two of them, one of them has to step forward and be in the rule of five. Now, Touran could be in there forward and be in the rule of five. Now, Turing could be in there just for his defense and passable offense. And so maybe he's really in there. But I think you really the true meaning of the rule of five is these are five bats you want in the lineup every day. And I don't I think Turing is who he is.

He's a good role player and a good guy to have in the bottom third of your order. Maybe maybe even you know get on base but you really want Ortiz or Mitchell to step forward and Make this a whole lineup rather than having to have to rank basically in the rule of five I think there's a lot on Ortiz and you know, there's a lot of promise for him because he he makes good Contact and a decent walk rate good glove a lot of things in place But we saw a bit of an uneven season from him last year Yeah so one thing that happened that may have been

Missed if you didn't follow this team closely or didn't have joy Ortiz on your teams is he had a collision with a tarp in late June and we're looking at his strikeout rate before and after the collision and there's a pretty big spike there so you wonder if in the second half if he just was not feeling right physically and swing and miss really isn't a big part of his game when you look back at Joey Ortiz as a prospect he seems like a guy that should control the strike zone pretty well at least get to occasional power and even steal some bases and aside from that he can play really good defense on the left side of the infield. So there's a lot of ways for it to work for him. I think you can tell yourself a story that what he was doing before that collision was

the next logical step forward for him as someone that was trying to break into the big leagues in Baltimore and was really finally getting his first extended run as a regular during the first half of the season with the Brewers. Yeah, you can see from this chart that his strikeout rate was way higher, more like 25% in second half. He's never really run those. And then you can also see from his bat speed that there was something going on because in April and May he had a 74.4 mile an hour bat speed, which is important for a couple reasons. That's actually near elite. That's really, really good bat speed. And we're going to show this chart later, but the Brewers are not actually good at

bat speed. That is not one of their, okay, well, here it is. They're 14th in the league last year in bat speed and you can see that, you know, their barrel rate was bottom third, their hard hit blast rate was bottom third. They're really good at not swinging and chasing. They're one of the most patient teams in the big leagues along with the Yankees and Dodgers. So that's what the Brewers do well, but they could, they would probably do a better job on offense if they combine that not chasing with better bat speed and with some more power. And the one guy that I have really circled here is Ortiz. 74.4 miles an hour in April and May to 71.8 in August and September. I mean, he lost more than two and a half ticks of bat speed and in terms of blasts,

he went from 13% blast to 7.7. Competitive swings even, he was at 93.7 competitive swings, he went to 87.7, so he just wasn't competitive the same way in the second half, and I wouldn't be surprised if injury was a part of that. That's the impression I'm under, is that it was really a physical problem more than anything else. Projections have him as a about a 20% K rate hitter this year.

This is from the bat X, by the way. I'd be surprised if he'd clocked in with a 92 WRC plus when it was all said and done. I think he ends up being a much more important part of this roster in 2025 than he was in 2024. And I guess just generally speaking, there are several teams that are built in this mold where they need some combined spots to exceed expectations in a platoon or young players who are slightly under projected to exceed projections. You're trying to find the rubric of why do some teams beat projections consistently? Why do some teams beat projections consistently? I do think they still have a group of players that you can kind of pick and choose one, two, three

that you actually like and say, yeah, these guys are probably a little better than what the numbers on the screen are trying to tell you. Sal Friedlich has beefed up, saw that as one of the reports from the Brewers beat, looks a lot more solid, so we'll see if he's able to turn into an eight to 10 homer guy with speed and great contact skills. Mitchell, we talked about on our outfield preview.

He's been hurt so much during his time in the organization that I think there are still a lot of questions, even for people that watch him all the time of what his true talent level is. He's shown an interesting combination of power and speed. We know he's yet another great center field defender they have at their disposal. Maybe it's more in a big side platoon because of the other options they have. But you can also look at Garrett Mitchell and say, he could be like a Josh Lowe type player

for them offensively. And if you don't play him against lefties, you're only getting the best of Mitchell and then you're getting a matchup you like on the days that he doesn't start, right? So you do that a couple of times, suddenly you're a team that maybe exceeds because you match really well with your depth.

Yeah, I think with his kind of projections, it's a little bit unlikely that he, you know, enters into the rule of five, just because, yes, his projections are mostly good. The Bat-X does not like him, gives him an 89 WRC plus, but everybody else is around league average. If he's around league average, then he might platoon because that means he's below league average against lefties. And so he would have to, I think, put together a really

like good improvement in his strikeout rate in order to kind of become rule of five. But I do see some hope in his monthly splits and his rolling graphs because he was striking out 45% of the time in the middle of the season last year by rolling graphs and he was seeing more sliders than he'd ever seen in his life. And the reason I'm hopeful is a little bit like that Lawrence Butler chart where he then got the strikeout rate back down to like

28% and they stopped throwing his many sliders. So he found something against sliders and that's what he's going to have to keep doing to stay ahead of his natural swing and miss is, you know, kind of figure out what pitchers are trying to do to him, figure out different swings and different attacks to, you know, different ways to attack the pitchers that he can get back at them. So are you generally upbeat about him? Yeah, I am. I think there's enough ways for him to be good, where on this team, there's plenty of playing time. I think they can use him to kind of optimize the per game efficiency and maybe there's still a chance he's still young enough to improve against same handed pitching.

So it's not a lock to be a platoon forever but it's at least it's at least a good fit on the roster as it's constructed. I think part of what also gives them more options with how they handle different spots is having someone like William Contreras that you play a ton between catcher and DH like most catchers don't eat up that much playing time, but you put a catcher into that core five and suddenly you can mess around with one more spot. So that's a little bit unique about this team to the Jackson Cheerio projections are also, I think, a tad lighter than we saw over the final two thirds of the season right for a guy that from June 1st on Hit 16 homers stole 15 bases hit 303 with a 358 OVP That's like 30 points above the slash line projections 270 and 321 from the bad X and It's more power a little more speed. So there's also the

Potential rising superstar that could just get to that six or seven war level too. They have that also as part of the core right now. Yeah, and to balance it, I think just an absolute pain point at third base and you know, I would be more sort of harping on it negative about it, except right now I'm doing a comparison of the Mets and Yankees because there were some dueling barbs between Soto and Judge this weekend about which team is in a better place to win. And they both have similar pain points. What do you think of the Yankees third base situation?

And what do you think of the Mets center field situation? So I would assume that if I looked around, almost every team, maybe, maybe not the Dodgers, because they're so good, but like, almost every team has a position like the Brewers have at third base, where they're just saying, well, shrug emoji, you know, somebody, anybody step forward. I don't know who it's going to be, because I don't. And I think I share your derision for Oliver Dunn. That's not fair to Oliver. I don't think Caleb Dermond is very good myself. I think Monasterio is a backup honestly and I think Tyler Black is probably stretched defensively at third

and I just don't know that is it Brock Wilkin is ready? I mean he was okay at double A last year with a 105 WS to RC plus at 22. That's about the same at like age average like double A is around 22 years old. So you don't give him any bonuses for being young. So he was basically just just around league average at double day last year. Maybe he's the guy that steps forward, but I don't really have any kind of batted ball data in front of me to tell me, you know, if he has good swing speed, if he is hitting the ball hard. So I'm just looking at a guy who strikes out a lot and has middling power rates for that strikeout rate. I don't know

that I have a champion at third. I'd love to say this is a big position battle and I can tell you who's gonna win it. I have no idea. They tried some Sal Freelick at third base in spring training last year. We'll see if they dabble in that again during the spring or not. But that's probably the positional question

because I think the assumption at the last conversation Pat Murphy had publicly anyway was just that there might be a preference to keep Tarang at second where he's an elite defender and just to move or tease to short and just keep those guys kind of consistently at one spot all the time instead of trying to toggle it around. But tons of different ways it could actually play out.

Brock Wilkin, by the way, got hit by a pitch in the face early last season. So you know, you could look at that and say that probably had an impact of some kind on what that season looked like. He's a big guy. I'd be I'd be very surprised if he didn't have above average bat speed, just having seen a little bit of him in spring training last year. He's a unit as the kids used to say. I hope they say that anymore, but they did say it at one point in time. And then the last thing on the hitter side, Christian Yelledge did say, quote, I don't see any reason why I won't be ready for opening day

when he was asked a few days ago by the Brewers beat. That was from Adam McKelvey, LB.com. So it looks like everything's tracking pretty good for really could be my favorite if he played third base. Durbin just really hits the ball softly. Twenty five percent hard hit rate in AAA last year. Just that's just the absolute softest. That's softer than Turing.

I see a lot of John Bertie in that profile, at least as it is currently built. That's what I kind of care. Who I compared him to at the time of the trade. Who's your guy at third? That's a good question. We got our answer I think I think my expectation all along has been that they'll find a way to pull a rabbit out of there Oh, I've got a rabbit for you. Yeah, Brandon Rogers Hmm. Yeah late late spring edition. Do they have you know, three to five million dollars? Sure. I don't think that's a problem

I think he would be good. I think it might require then doing something different with Turing and Ortiz maybe because of Roger's arm or whatever. Yeah, that would be a kind of a bummer to have to mess with that. So maybe it's not on the roster yet. I don't know.

I honestly, I don't have a strong feel for this right now. I want to see if they're actually serious about Friedlich doing it again, but I don't get the sense that that's like plan A. They have some outfield deaths because they can go four deep with Perkins out there. Let's talk about the pitching for a bit. It's one big change with Nestor Cortez joining the mix. You get a full season of Aaron Savall.

You do lose Devin Williams out of the bullpen in the aforementioned trade that brought Nestor Cortez and Caleb Durbin to Milwaukee. Some depth guys are gone. Montaz, who they acquired the Deadline, Colin Ray, some bullpen guys like Kobe Milner, Bryce Wilson, Joe Ross, they're all gone as well. I think the question people are asking right now is if Trevor McGill,

who's slowed by a couple of ailments this spring, if he's not the closer on opening day because of injuries, who's actually getting save opportunities out of that Milwaukee bullpen from the jump? If it's not Megil, I know that, you know, people like Piamps to some degree, but I just kind of feel like that has been just a stopgap measure. So if it's a, if it's a bigger deal injury, then I wonder if they would reach to like Jared Koenig, maybe like he has, I know he's a lefty but he throws harder than

Pi Amps I think he has better projections than Pi Amps and better stuff than Pi Amps neither one of them really profiles as a closer but I don't know maybe they just kind of do both. It's not as obvious to me. We did have a Yo-Ho as a guy that popped in the model, but there's not an obvious, like when Williams was hurt, I was all over Trevor Magill. And I just don't, I don't have that in front of me right now. It's less clear this time around, but given what they've been able to do, the number of relievers they've found and developed and tweaked over the years, they'll have someone. I think there's a few things with other roles that will

ultimately determine who that could be. If Aaron Ashby is in the back of the rotation, then it's not Ashby. But if he's not in the rotation, if Tyler Alexander is the fifth starter or something to start the year, then maybe it's Ashby. If Jacob Mizorowski is in the bullpen, he could be the guy. And Abner Uribe has not even listed on this right now.

So I don't know if it's because of injury or just because they don't know where he's going to be on the roster. Yeah, I mean, it's bad, bad command. But they were so quick to give him the opportunity to begin last year before McGill actually kind of took over for Williams. It makes me think that anything's possible as far as someone with very limited experience in the big leagues maybe coming in and taking that role. So it's wide open. You've got to keep a close eye on this one throughout the spring. DL Hall's got a lat strand right now.

His role is kind of up in the air. You mentioned Yoho. Oh man, he just can't stay healthy, God. No, he really can't. Good news on Brendan Woodruff too. He's making progress coming back from anterior capsule surgery, unlikely for opening day, but at least heading in the direction you'd hope he'd be in in February. I was scared straight by the email from, was it Dr. Tim?

Dr. Tim sent us an email about anterior capsule repairs and it scared me straight. So if you look at my rankings, you'll see it basically Woodruff's is on a do not draft for me. Love Peralta though. Savali is a stuff plus darling that I think Milwaukee made the right tweaks to his arsenal last year. I think he will probably go in and out because I think what happens is it's a lot to ask him to throw a cutter, a slider, and a curve. And I think sometimes, and I think he even does like cutter, gyro, slider, sweeper, and curve. And it's like, I think sometimes, and I think he even does like cutter, gyroslider, sweeper and curve. It's like, okay, so you're spinning the ball four different ways that sometimes can blend with each other. I think that just goes in and out for him sometimes.

That's when the home runs come and the walks come. Because he's not a good fastball guy, he can't just blow it by anybody. So I think that's just part of the package. You're going to have Savali and maybe some days not want to use him But I really like Nester Cortez I think Myers, you know, he has a really good change-up and he could throw that pitch more There are actually ways for him to have more strikeouts and be a more conventional starter than this kind of

You know tunneling Surprise good starter with bad strikeout rates like there is some stuff in there for Tobias Myers. Look at his change up stuff plus, it's pretty good. So I think Myers is an underrated pitcher. So they've done a good job putting together four guys. The fifth guy will be tough for them coming out of spring. Who's it gonna be? I think Aaron Ashby has gotta be the answer there.

Ashby has looked really good in the bullpen. He's had a really nice Sierra the entire time he's been in the big there. Ashby has looked really good in the bullpen. He's had a really nice Sierra the entire time he's been in the big leagues. He's been in fits and spurts, different roles, but you have to imagine that you look at him, they gave him an extension a couple years ago too, you would want to try him as a starter again before you fully go down the reliever rabbit hole. I think you're confident he'll be a great reliever, but I think you have to believe he could also still be a pretty good starter, because the stuff is good enough,

and post injury, further removed from injury himself, I think we're starting to see the Ashby that we were all hoping for a couple of years ago when he broke through. So my pick would be Ashby for now, but I think he's the kind of guy for fantasy, like for fantasy purposes, where if it doesn't work as a starter,

it's gonna end up in the very high leverage spots late in games where it could end up being a part of the closer solution as well. I know Jacob Mizarowski, we should mention him. He's a fun prospect. We've talked about him a fair amount. High stuff, low walk, like low command kind of approach. I just don't think that that's... There's always the chance that Ashby's injured again too, because he's had some troubles with injuries too. So I think

that right now Mizorowski is somewhere around six or seventh on the death chart. So definitely a possibility that he could surprise, have a good spring, show good command Ashby's hurting and then he's the answer because I don't really know the other answer. I don't think Robert Gasser is ready yet. Midseason probably more mid second half, mid second half even. I'm not seeing a lot of starting pitching prospects that are supposedly ready for the big leagues right away. They could surprise and sign Jose Quintana to, you know, a cheap deal. So there's a chance that they catch, you know, a cheap deal. So there's a chance that they catch, you know, a veteran here, but I think they're hoping for Ashby.

Think they got their guy with Tyler Alexander. Looks like that is a more complete group of pitchers right now overall, and they're gonna try to find a way to make it work, but generally a group that's undervalued by ADP, I think, you can do pretty well if you're just gonna bank on what they've been able to do as an organization. Wind total projection from Pagoda 80.6 for these brewers. Too hot, too cold or just right? That's too cold. Come on. I wrote too cold, obviously. What do you expect me to say? They also, they have a, let's see what it is over at Fangrafts, they have the Brewers

for 81 wins, which is, yeah, see? Way too cold. Too cold by 0.4. Yeah, there's agreement on what the Brewers, as they're constructed, are. I think across the projection systems, the lack of agreement comes with the Cubs, but we'll get to them in a little while. Right. And I think that you can say, like, without even talking about the brewers' quality, you can say that the brewers are better than the Cardinals, Reds, and Pirates, probably. You know, without saying anything about them versus the Cubs. And if they're better than the Cardinals, Reds, and Pirates this year, then how are they going to end up at 81-81? You know, they're going gonna play those guys 16 times.

Right, that's the way it works out. Still see them a lot being in the same division. 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 rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A.

Let's get to those Cardinals. How are we doing the Cardinals second? Because we go in order of the previous year standings. They finished ahead of the Cubs last year? They sure did. Oh my god, that's so weird. So weird. It's weird that I don't know that, but I, you know, I don't know.

Last year's standings, gone already. Just erased from those memories. Long, long gone. Okay, so this has been a weird off season for the Cardinals. You look around, who's in? Nobody. Yeah.

It's just the same cast that was there last year, except Paul Goldschmidt's gone. He's a Yankee now. So one everyday roll opened up. One of the five spots is there. You look at this group by projection, Mason Wynn projected to be an everyday guy. Nolan Arnado, as long as he's there, he's part of that five as well. Brendan Donovan, third in plate appearance projections.

Like he's a nice player. I feel like every time he comes up, I talk down about him. Like, I just think he's he's a good first guy off the bench. He's probably not a guy you want to have playing every day on a contending team. No, 108 WRC plus. That's you know, that's got to be top 10 among second baseman. So but we're talking about a guy projected for five hundred and seventy plate appearances, going to 11 homers and steal five bases.

It's just a pretty it's a pretty empty of all the ways to be better than league average That's like a very boring way to get there There's no ceiling there at least those like making contact and spraying the ball getting it's getting some walks It's it's kind of a dirtbag way of getting there So you move Wilson Contreras into Paul Goldschmidt spot at first base good for his projection We've talked about that gives him a shot to go well over 500 plate appearances health permitting win are an auto Contreras There's your first three who are the other two that are in their core five right now as this rosters built I think Alec Burleson is is a platoon bat

We did get some pushback in the discord of you know Some thinking that maybe he could push past that and he's underrated and I do think he's a decent bat and probably underrated by These projections here for don't 101 WRC plus, but I think that he's a platoon bat myself. So I don't think it's him. I think it's Walker and newt bar. And if not by quality, maybe Donovan beats them in quality by war or even WRC plus or whatever. I think it'll be because it's important for their future to know if they're in the rule of five. So they will be in the rule of five because they want them to be. So Walker, Newt Bar and Wynn are the future for this team.

And so I think they'll all be in everyday roles because that's what they need to do to get to go forward. I don't know if that courtesy extends to Victor Scott myself because the projections are so bad on Scott and he's looked so lost, you know, in the big leagues and they have Michael Ciani, who's could be like a Jose Siri type or, you know, just a very fast, very good defender. The floor is so high and this team so often the cardinal way for me is, you know, is like floor over ceiling sometimes, right? You know, just like credible starters at every position. I could see Ciani breaking camp

as the starting center fielder and not Victor Scott. But I do think that Walker and Newt Barr are so important to them offensively that they will get every day at bats. If Victor Scott played about a half season in triple A last year, hit a 210, 294, 303 line. So I think he can pretty safely pencil back into AAA to start the year.

It's just not ready yet. So yeah, that's where your deep league Mike Ciani love really makes a lot of sense to me, especially, so that he can play center field and they're gonna need someone to hold that spot until Scott is ready. I think I'm with you on Walker and Newt Barr though, and Walker, I can't explain what happened to him last year.

It just didn't make sense. The logical progression for a player that does what Jordan Walker did in 2013 at the age in which he did it in the big leagues with really nice top and exit velocities, no explanation whatsoever. I mean, how much of this is having to play the outfield and learning defensively on the job in the big leagues

and all that negativity that swirls around them? Like what is going on with Jordan Walker? Because it looks like there's still a ton in terms of raw potential here. And if you can tap into that, that's one of the ways things could look a little bit better for this Cardinals lineup. I really wanted to share this leaderboard of August and September bat speed with a low

level minimum level to get in and Jordan Walker is fourth and Matt Wallner is seventh. The reason I bring up Matt Wallner is I think Jordan Walker can be a Matt Wallner. What do we talk about with Wallner? We're talking about a guy who swings and misses a lot, but he makes really hard contact when he does. And you can see that in the squared up percentage where Wallner, you know, Junior Caminero has like a 33% squared up percentage in here. Judge 30, Julio Rodriguez 30, O'Neal Cruz 38, you know, so they're doing're doing great Walker has a 29% by contact 20% by swing his numbers There look a little bit more like Waller or Schwaber, you know So I do think that the swing and miss that we saw You know and Walker's profile that we weren't sure was gonna actually be there coming up

I think it's it's for real so that I don't think he's gonna be like an 18 20% strikeout rate guy I think it's gonna real. So that I don't think he's gonna be like an 18, 20% strikeout rate guy. I think it's gonna be 25, 26, 27 at least. I think the real key for him is just getting the ball off the ground. And the reason that I think he can do it is because he did it in the minor leagues. You know, he had reasonable ground ball rates in the minor leagues.

I think if he can get back to a 45% ground ball rate in the big leagues, a guy who's hit the ball 115.5 miles an hour is going to make enough hard contact to be kind of a, maybe a low batting average, low OBP slugger type. And what's funny is that when I saw him, my scouting tendencies were, I don't like his swing and I never really liked him as a prospect, but I'm back in now because the top end vilos are there. And even if I think his swing is a little bit muscled up and it doesn't look like he has live hands, it doesn't look like he can really adjust mid swing.

I don't get that sort of idea from him. He has such good bat speed that he's just going to hit the ball really hard. What like people are excited to some extent about John Kansky and Noel, you know, and Walker has better, you know, like not as bad swing and miss as John Kansky and Noel. So just reframe your expectations to Matt Wallner, John Kansky and Noel. So just reframe your expectations to Matt Wallner, John Kansky and Noel, like maybe Joe Adelish, you know, like that kind of, he's gonna be that kind of offensive player where it's gonna be swing and miss,

but he's gonna make really hard contact. Then if you reframe that and you put that player in St. Louis, you realize the ceiling isn't amazing, but, and the floor is pretty low, but he deserves to be on sleeper list. I do think with Walker, if he gets to 500 plus played appearances, 517 is what you see on the screen with the bad X projection next to it. I think he's hitting more than 15 home runs with that kind of playing time. It's kind of hard to do both things like they're going to give him 517 play appearances.

The only 15 homers I don't know. I think if they give him 517 is because he only in 15 homers? I don't know. I think if they give him 517, it's because he's hitting for power. Yeah, so I do look at that and say, OK, I'm probably up above that pretty high if I'm taking that late flyer on Jordan Walker. I do think this is the kind of year where the Cardinals need to learn a lot about some of their their younger players that were recently graduated prospects and get a sense for whether or not they're part of the future. Nolan Gorman is part of that group for me too. Still a lot of swing and miss in that

projection, still big time power. I think you want to kind of figure it out this year as far as is he there as a regular in 2026. It would have been so much better if they traded Arnado because then they give full-time gigs to Gorman and Berluson and also fold Segeci into the mix to give him a taste of big leagues and see how he's doing. As it is, that's probably the kind of second half plan, you know, after they trade Arnado mid-season. Yeah, and maybe, hey, maybe they can trade him a little sooner than that. Maybe they can do like a late May or a June trade. It's always possible, but it's seemingly less likely for a player with as much money on his contract as no one are not.

Oh, has the big questions with the Cardinals for me or what, if anything, has changed to this point with pitching development? I mean, you see Sonny Gray as someone that we both like atop the rotation. I think he's under drafted right now in most leagues. And beyond that, it's kind of like, all right, we're waiting for Quinn Matthews and Tink Hens, some of the young guys to come in and take over spots that are currently held by Miles Michaelis and Eric Fetty. Just it looks like they're going to go through a pretty big organizational transition for how they value seek out out, coach, and develop pitching.

And I think we're just beginning to get into that. So it may take a year or two before we start getting really excited about some of the guys that they're bringing up to the top levels of that system. When you're changing the way you think about pitching and the way you model it and the way you coach it, there is a kind of lagging component of that,

which is what the meat you're putting into the grinder. And the way that I can kind of put an example on is this, you could be improving your coaching process. And I think the St. Louis has got to be improving their coaching process. I believe in Heim Blum in this way, that he knows the right people, he's hiring the right people.

We've seen some of that evidence. He's hired some interesting people from the Guardians and so on. But you already drafted Quinn Matthews. So your best minds in coaching are working with a completely refined college starter that pitched a ton in college and probably is who he is to some extent. It's probably hard to change Quinn Matthews in the way that you might be able to change a 17 year old high schooler. So Quinn Matthews stuff plus on the slider is pretty good 107.

On the change up 98 that's maybe passable. On the curve ball 95 that's not super exciting. On the four seam fastball 90 and on the sinker 89 This sounds like every Cardinal starter ever So it's hard for me to get that excited about him He could be a large mixed guy with command and stuff, but I just don't think that he's a top-end possibility I'm gonna make sure that I believe in a 374 ERA that he's got projected right now So yeah, Quinn math is gonna get a shot at some point.

Steven Matz can't stay healthy. Andre Pallante is like a reliever convert. Eric Fetty is gonna get traded as soon as someone wants him. Sonny Gray could get traded any minute. So Quinn Matthews, I think will get a hundred major league innings this year, especially since he's kind of a workhorse that way. I just don't know how excited to get about it.

And Matthew Liberto is the example that came before. It don't know how excited to get about it, you know. And Matthew Livertore is the example that came before, you know, it's just, how excited do you get about another kind of large mix? He's got command. It's super refined. And then you'd look at the stuff, less numbers and you're like, Oh, that's, that's why you got them. Yeah. And they did leave the door open for some of the younger guys to take on roles by letting Kyle Gibson walk in free agency, Lance Lins gone, lost a couple guys in the bullpen with Giovanni Gallegos, Andrew Kittredge moving on.

We talked about Ryan Helsley on the closer preview. I mean, I think he's in that circle of trust. Closer as we like. If this team's not contending midseason, he's probably working in another bullpen, possibly closing game somewhere else. I think he has the type of stuff where he's like good enough to close on many teams. But if a super team with an elite bullpen acquired him, then all bets are off because he could end up in the seventh or eighth inning just because there are two other guys that are just as good as him. I don't know that I can identify a real easy replacement either, because there's just nobody who blows you away with their stuff. I guess it might be Ryan Fernandez, but he's got a 100 stuff plus that's a little bit underwhelming for a closer. And none of their other guys are like super obvious. Gordon Crosifo is listed as a as a long reliever. You know, I wonder if

you could get a Vila big Vila boost, but he's like 93 five. So I don't even think that he's, you know, even with the Vila boost, he wouldn't have above average Velo for a closer So I don't have a closer in in waiting yet on this team We may may find him in spring right and I think that's something I do like to Really dig into in the spring see who pops see who came in on an NRI or someone from the org that took a big step Forward this winter just looks completely different. I think that's where the next closer can come from in some of the more unsettled situations.

I guess Jojo Romero might be my guy, but he's also a left-hander that's kind of sinker slider, so it's a little bit of a weird combo for closer. So this team by Picota projected for 77.7 wins, too hot, too cold, or just right for these cars. Too hot, the projection system can't see that they're going to sell pieces. So they're going to be on like a 70 something wind pace and then they're going to sell pieces and get worse.

I wonder, I think the only way that doesn't play out is if they just get red hot in the first half for a little while and then decide to play the middle and hang around because anyone can do that. I'm leaning more on the too hot. This team doesn't feel like it's very good. And some of the guys that we want to see get better should have started to get better by now if that was going to all click this year.

So enjoy it while you can rest of the NL Central. I don't think they're gonna be down for long. I think they're headed in the right direction. I guess the rose colored glasses is glasses is yeah that last part you were just saying. The rose colored glasses is there are pieces here for the future and you can get excited about Segeci and Gorman could be a slugging second baseman you know that just isn't amazing defensively kind of a what you'd think of as a third baseman. Maybe he's just think he's your third baseman and it makes sense.

You know, Gorman as Max Muncie, you know, and Newt Barr, if you could just stay healthy for a full season, might not have shown us his best yet. And then Jordan Walker is obviously someone I think they could really benefit from, you know, we talked a little bit about giving people chances, full year chances. You know, this is that year where people get 500 play appearances and tell the Cardinals who they are

for the future. Yeah, we'll see how that all plays out here in the months ahead. Let's move it over to the Cubs. They finished third last year, but they are the favorites to win the division by projections. Pretty big gap from Pocota, like 10 wins, I think, above the Brewers, which I think many, many Brewers fans would squabble with immediately and understandably

So one thing about the Cubs that is a little bit easier to see is their core five bats, right? The guys they're gonna lean on most heavily you sort of I played appearances. They're right there They're right there in front of your face when you trade for Kyle Tucker, obviously, that's one right there But the holdovers that go with him, Ian Happ, Dan's B. Swanson, Seiya Suzuki and probably Pete Crowe Armstrong ahead of Michael Bush. But you can see Michael Bush, at least on the big side of platoon. I know he played better than expected against lefties last year. I don't know how much I trust that, but he could be right there, too.

It's one of those teams that I think some people look at the bench and say, why is it a bunch of light hitting utility guys? It's because they actually have more than five guys that should play every day. Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty good lineup. You know, it's the only question is what they do with Nico Horner's spot when he's while he's recovering and third base. And again, we've seen that many teams have pain points at one position and having a top prospect like Matt Shaw as a potential solution at third base, those projections could be light.

So how much do you really need on the bench anyway? You just need someone who can play second base, who can back up short. Dancy Swanson's been kind of an Ironman at short, you know. And you don't even really need them to be that great at center, because you're gonna leave Pete Crowe in there for his defense most days. So yeah, I could see this team producing a fair amount of 600-played-appearance players, you know,

just plug and go with most of these guys. Yeah, I think one of my takeaways looking at the Cubs is I think they're gonna score a lot of runs Like maybe they're a little underrated Zips loves them more than almost any projection system to Zips really loves this offense I get it because it's above average players that are gonna play a ton and a couple of really high-end guys with Tucker Specifically at least for this year don't know if we'll get an extension But nonetheless like this this is a good. Doesn't seem to have any holes. Has some young guys breaking through.

The big question I think we have beyond Matt Shaw, is he, is he ready? Is he an everyday guy from the jump? They did add Justin Turner to the mix. So there's your possible platoon partner for Michael Bush and maybe someone they can use temporarily to sort of buffer some time for Matt Shaw. If he's not ready an opening day. But Shaw does everything we like in a fantasy player.

So I think it's going to happen. You don't really want to put Turner out there. So I think Birdie makes this team. It's a major league deal, right? It's a major league deal. And he fulfills the need, which is someone to play second while Horner because Horner might not make opening day, if I remember correctly.

He's in a great spot. He's not gonna miss much time, if at all. So I hear not ready for opening day. And then if he is on the aisle to make for opening day, I think that Vidal Brujjan might make this roster just because he's then the backup at second and short. You know, you just need another body on the infield if Horner's not there.

So chance for Brujjan to be there for a little bit. I don't think it's necessarily an impact of year for Brujjan because at some point Horner's back and I think Brujjan goes back down. In the outfield, I've mentioned that people are excited about Owen Cassie and you know as a prospect you know behind a veteran outfield there's a chance that he could come up and play but he is 22 he's not too old yet to be playing AAA, 24 is the average age in AAA and he does have some strikeouts that he could work on. So you could there are things that he could work on in the minor leagues. And on top of that, you have a very similarly profiled Alexander Canario,

who strikes out too much, is a little bit older at 24, but is out of options and you know, plays center field to, to an extent. So I think if you're building a bench, it's Canario, Brujjan, Kelly, and Turner, and you're done. Pretty straightforward as it's currently constructed. And again, well built, pretty much top to bottom.

As far as Pete Crow Armstrong goes, do you see another level or possibly two over what he's projected to bring at the plate? And the combination of power and speed with an everyday role, that's gonna make him pretty valuable. It's like your third outfielder in a lot of different leagues.

Obviously from a real life perspective, the glove is phenomenal and the raw tools have always been intriguing, but what do you think that final line looks like? Are we talking about a guy at the end of the season who is a tick below average with the bat by overall slash line because of the swing and miss or the lack of patience,

or do you see another level coming right away? You can do some monthly split playing where you're like, oh my God, he had an 18% strikeout rate in June, and what if he does that? But if you look at the rolling graphs, a little bit slightly different picture emerges where his K-rate did spike early at 40%, then it really improved and he was running a 10% to 15% strikeout rate for a little bit and then it went back up. You can see that they started filling up the zone low with

him sliders. He was seeing a lot of sliders late in the year. You can see that he's, you know, alternated, you know, at his very best. He was striking out 15% of the time and hard hitting 40% of the time. So if you focus just on that, I think you could tell the story of him really breaking out. But I tend to zoom out a little bit and just see these peaks and valleys of strikeout rate and that's just going to be the story of Pekker Armstrong. He's going to go in and out and be streaky I think. And maybe he can catch a good streak and that'll be his peak season and that season he'll have a good strikeout rate and he'll hit 25 homers and steal 35 bags and hit 275

or something. And that'll be what everyone chases. But I, if I have a prediction about his career is that it'll be, he'll be more in and out. And you mentioned Michael Taylor once and I think, you know, there's some, some truth in that. Yeah, from the left side, but yeah, similar just in terms of the low, the low average OPP combination with the tools that play up and make him still a really exciting player even if he's not quite the perennial all-star top 50 overall all-round sort of guy. On the pitching side, Shota Emanaga, year one in the big leagues was fantastic, especially in the first half, but overall very

successful first season for him with the Cubs You just and steel come up there in the top of them as the one to punch top the rotation for now You got Jameson tie on back as a pretty solid three I'll be at a guy with a low k-rate and then they bring in Matthew Boyd Boyd is one of those guys where it's like, okay, he said it health problems in recent years So we haven't seen a lot of big workloads from him but in the little bits we have seen him, there's been a little more swing and miss, and it's hard for me to pin down

what his skills baseline is. He doesn't have to be more than a number three, number four starter type in this rotation, but I'm curious how good you think the Cubs pitching is as a whole, because as much as I like that lineup and as dangerous as I think they are, almost top to bottom,

I think this is where they could be a bit vulnerable. Yeah, I don't love it. Especially the the depth is is pretty boring to me other than Boyd. You know right now the Cubs are around 18th or 19th by Fangraft War. Let's see if I can find 19th. And they say Monogat and Steel are comfortably above average near all-star level starters, and that there's not a league average starter on the team other than them. I do like Ben Brown,

but the Stuff Plus update was not super kind to him and doesn't even really like his fastball despite the fact that he threw it 96-7. So I don't know what happened there. He does have an elite knuckle curve that will give him strikeouts and is a better pitch, you know, one-on-one than maybe anything from Assad, Boyd and Wray other than maybe Boyd's slider. So Ben Brown deserves to be a part of this picture. Jordan Wicks, as much as I don't love him, has a wide mix of five pitches, a 102 stuff plus, and a good change up and slider combination with

a above average fastball. I think Jordan Wicks might actually be ahead of Colin Wray and with Javier Asad being hurt, Wicks has a chance here. So if you put Wicks and Brown in there ahead of Colin Ray, I feel a little bit better about it. I would say they could be a league average starting rotation. Couple of additions in the bullpen too. They traded for Ryan Presley. They got Ryan Berazier when he got pushed off

the Dodgers roster. You've mentioned Nate Pearson in the past as someone you like. Porter Hodge looked like he was taking a pretty big step. Yeah, this bullpen is better than it's been in a while is this is a better bullpen. They've had in a while Yeah, I would agree with that I think that was a pretty glaring weakness in the last couple of years when we've done these previews I think they've fixed it to the point where it's at least an average major league bullpen

Maybe even a little better I stick by my projection that by the end of the season, Hodge will be closing over Ryan Presley. Okay, we'll let you keep that one. That's uh, that's okay. The picota total for the Cubs, 90.6, too hot, too cold, or just right? I'm gonna go just right. I don't want to, I don't want to push it harder than that harder than that with some of the flaws we see in that pitching staff. I think that's fair because Justin Steele also has some lingering arm problems that have been a problem too. And he's really important for them. He beats the projections. He's been very, very good. Yeah, Shotaro, they're the two guys that could be stars. So if any sort of hurting to them,

I don't know that, you know, even as much as I like Wicks or Brown, that they're necessarily gonna step into that level of quality. Yeah, I landed on just right for this Cubs team as well. I think they deservedly projected to win the division by a pretty small margin, more like the Fangrass margin than what I see on Pocota.

But generally, that to me is just the Brewers being too light in Picota. It's not the Cubs being too hot. So I think it's going to be a really fun race in the NL Central. A lot of folks are wondering how many teams are actually in that race this year. And let's get to the Reds. I look at this Reds team where they added Gavin Lux. They were kind of sniffing around trying to get a Luis Robert trade in. Instead, they bring in Austin Hayes as a right handed outfielder to mix and match.

Change it back up catcher with Jose Trevino. Good glove. Not much of a bat. Thai France out of the mix, but mostly the same group of hitters coming back and maybe just hoping for better health from the group, right? Because Matt McClain is healthy now. Christian Carnazio on Strand missed most of last season. He's healthy now. Noel V. Marte suspended and hurt last year.

He's healthy now. So I think they're banking on getting more out of several guys they were hoping to rely on a year ago. Yeah, but if you start thinking about the rule of five, you actually realize how quickly it breaks down. You know, you're like, Ellie, realize how quickly it breaks down. You know, you're like, Ellie, yeah, love it. Matt McClain. Yep. Love it. Spencer Steer. Yep. Like, you know, strong. I like his two strike approach. Just a really good player. Maybe not a star

necessarily, but an everyday player. So you got three. I think it starts breaking down after that. I mean, Heimer Kandelandelario is old and not projected well. Friedl's not projected well. I mean, you could keep him in there for some glove, but he wasn't one of the best centerfielders in there. Tyler Stevens, who projects well with the bat for a catcher, but is he like really what we think of as a rule of five type, he's not like a, you know, like a contrarious,

you know? So Austin Hayes, I think, is a part time player. Gavin Lux could step into that role. And then my favorite for stepping into the role is Christian Encarnacion Strand, just because he projects to be one of the four or one of the five players on this team that are going to be above average by WRC plus. And they're going gonna just need that bat

and they can figure out how to move the gloves around to accommodate him. In trading away, Jonathan India, I think they did do themselves a favor. I was surprised it was trade away India and add Lux because it feels like they just went with a left-handed guy that gives them a similar crowd. Maybe that's

better overall for the balance of the roster though given the personnel at their disposal. I think the thing I like about the way their lineup is built is that a few of their core guys, their whole core, it's power and speed. So there are different ways they can burn you. There are different ways they can put runs on the board. We know the ballpark also boost homers so they have that in their back pocket as well. The Jamer Candelario fit continues to be weird. I think you were right to call that out. That's one of those areas where that projection could come in lighter in terms of playing time if he continues to struggle. We talked about their DH spot being a little bit up in the air before too. I think that's still very true. Look at Jake

Fraley's projection down to an 82 WRC plus. So I would say nothing's really guaranteed to him. It's big side platoon or bust moving between the corner outfield and the D.H. spot. It's a lot of faith in the guys that were not healthy or unavailable last year. And of the three out of McLean, Encarnacion Strand and Noe V. Marte, I do think the floor with Encnazion Strand seems the safest, just in terms of what you have to pay in drafts to get them. I think Matt McClain is a better all-around player, but you're still not getting enough of a discount on Matt McClain in fantasy to account for the massive shoulder problem that

cost them a year. It's a shoulder problem that cost them a year, It's a shoulder problem that cost them a year, but it's also you pile that on top of, you know, kind of a breakout power numbers that aren't necessarily fully supported by all of his metrics, you know what I mean? Like a 10% barrel rate and a 216 ISO, maybe, but with a 109.9 max EV and then, you know,

some ISOs that started with 100 and the miners, I think the power was his softest tool among the group. And so if you then add a shoulder injury to it and you take, you shave his power projections, now you're getting a guy that could be projected for 250, 15, 15, or 15, 18. I know he does have the elite speed, but he only stole 14 bags and 400 through plate appearances. So that's our baseline. So if he's 250 15 18, you're probably overpaying for men dress right now.

Is there anybody else other than Christian and Karnazio in strand? As you look at the bottom part of the hitter group, you say, you know what? I think that guy's going to play a lot more than the projections are suggesting, because if they're light in their core group of five, that means there's opportunity here. Yeah, I keep thinking that the outfield is more in flux than maybe people think. And I don't know. I think maybe Hayes has a chance to become an everyday player.

I think he's going to take to that park and he used to be an everyday player. He's projected to be right around league average overall. As a righty, it seems like, you know, I don't know that it's, I think it might be a little bit early to be riding his death knell and make him only versus lefties. So if the health is there, I don't know. I don't think that much of Stuart Fairchild and I think Friedl and Fraley are both marginally type players. And then you can even play Steer on the infield, and Cronostian Strand at DH. So there's other ways that Hayes can

scratch out full-time playing time. I had a fun fact for this team. The Picota system has the Reds scoring the second most runs in the division, which makes sense given the ballpark and some of the pieces they have, even if we're not quite sure how the playing time shakes out across the entire group. But they're also projected to allow more than every team in baseball, other than the Rockies and White Sox.

The Nats and Marlins are close to that level, so they're basically a bottom five expectation in run prevention. And I'm not sure I believe that. I actually think they might be they might be a little worse offensively than projected and a little better at run prevention and pitching than projected because I kind of like this group. I think Hunter Green took some steps forward last year. Nick Martinez is someone I continue to underestimate. He accepted the qualifying offer, so he stays in the mix for them. I think you look at Nick Lodolo as a longtime sleeper

and riser that just needs to stay healthy. You could look at Green Lodolo as a one-two. You could talk yourself into Rhett Lauder getting some opportunities. They added Brady Singer for depth. I know the park change going from KC to Cincinnati might be tough, because it may just juice up that home run rate a bit.

But I actually like the options they have to start games. It's another team where kind of like Cubs bullpens of recent years you look at and say, I don't know if I like that relief core all that much, but I think the starting pitching might be a little underrated here. Yeah, Fangrass has, I was going to say that Fangrass has the relief crews bottom five

in the big leagues and I don't necessarily disagree. So whatever you think of the starting rotation, your bullpen is pitching half the games too. So that's going to drag them down a little bit. And just to temper your optimism a little bit, Andrew Abbott and Rhett and Lauder are both behind in camp and they both had injuries last year that they're dealing with. Abbott's being a shoulder that cut his season short is not great to throw on top of the fact that every model doesn't like

him. It's not just stuff plus. I mean, you can look at every model is projecting high fours ERAs out of Andrew Abbott, despite, you know, like a three, three right for his career. So whatever it is, I feel like, yeah, what is it here for Andrew Abbott? Uh, three, seven, eight for his career. Four, seven, eight Sierra last year, you know, projections, the bat says four eight five ERA. So it's an amazing sort of battle of the wits between Andrew Abbott and all the projection systems that I would love to see him be healthy

and play out this year, because I want to know more. I want to know why what we're missing. He's a confounder. The other guy is Martinez Singer. You know, I do think they can be role players. I'm not that big on Red Louder as a prospect. And for me, Lodolo and Green are the one, two of the future or the present. And it's all about Lodolo's health.

But if you get, you know, if you got a surprise season with 160 innings from Lodolo, then I agree with you, because then I think Green and Lodolo are your stars. And then Singer, Martinez and Abbott can be fine. Sort of mid to back rotation types. Yeah I do think Chase Burns could move quickly but I don't know if he's going to move so quickly that he actually debuts by the end of 2025. That might require the Reds to be in the mix for a playoff spot or you know something along those lines something to be that aggressive with the timeline but he's probably part of this conversation when we do this for 2026.

You mentioned that bullpen Alexis Diaz, I just keep waiting for him to lose the job and we talked about it on the closer preview. I don't know if I see an obvious candidate to be the next guy up. I think Taylor Rogers might be my preferred option to do it if they're just looking for someone out of those late ending options because at the very least he's done the job before. It's been inconsistent in the years since he was a regular closer though and I think the ballpark especially is going to make life a bit more difficult for Taylor Rogers. Tony Santillan has okay stuff 105 stuff plus 97 on the fastball but a really good slider and had a really good season last year so so he could be a dark horse there.

But I thought you were gonna say that our real dark horse here that we might like. Oh, well, yeah, I was saving that for the very end, but we can throw that out there now. Well, it depends on the injuries though with the rotation, because if they're really shorthanded in the rotation, maybe Graham Ashcraft has to temporarily start to begin the year, but, and you've always been able to look at him in the model and say it could work as a starter, it should definitely work as a reliever. So if they commit to Graham Ashcraft as a short reliever,

I think he starts to pop as your, who should close if Alexis Diaz is not the closer in Cincinnati question. Yeah, although the most recent run of Stuff Plus really turfed Ashcraft, he's down to a 100 Stuff Plus and it doesn't like the cutter as much as it used to, so I don't know whatever reason that is. Although, yes, go to the pen, get some more ticks, don't throw that sinker, you know,

all sorts of ways for him to contribute more as a closer. All right, we gotta take a look at the wind projection here because we still got one more team to go. 74.5 is the wind total projection for these reds. Too hot, too cold, or just right? I don't know if they're that bad, dude. I'm gonna go with too cold. Too cold? Alright, I think it's just right. I think the problems in run prevention are generally real, even though their rotation might be a tick underrated. They may still struggle to round out the bottom half of that lineup. That's a legitimate concern I think when it comes to the Reds this year.

At some point it seemed like they had just so many young players that were, they were going to have too many and now you look in and you're like, do they have enough? Do they have enough? Yeah. It's crazy how quickly that can change but I don't think we're the only ones who have that view right now of this Reds team. You want to take a look at a team that has some questions though. Let's talk about the Pirates.

The questions here are just ridiculous. Who's in their five? Like really, like who's actually in their five? Brian Reynolds and O'Neil Cruz. So two, they have two guys in their five because their off season was make a trade to get Spencer Horowitz, sign Tommy family and add Adam Frazier. Horowitz is out six to eight weeks and may not be ready for opening day. Right and they lost mostly role players, Brian De La Cruz, Michael Taylor, Connor Joe, Roddy Talez, all out of the equation. So it's not like they lost a bunch of 550 plus plate appearance guys either. I think the scenario I put out there for the Pirates

a few weeks ago when we had Keith Law on the show was, could they end up in a world where they have to play Joey Bart, Henry Davis, and Andy Rodriguez all in the same lineup just because Davis is in the outfield, Rodriguez can move around a little bit. Andrew McCutcheon's the DH, so you don't have the DH spot to play with, but I think they have enough versatility from Rodriguez where they might be able to do that and they may they may have to

just to find enough quality bats to put in this lineup every day. Yeah, I mean I like Horowitz, but he was a platoon option for them I think and McCutcheon is a strict platoon option, so that's already two players that are platooning there. I don't think any of the Bart Rodriguez Davis, I don't think, are going to be somebody that would make their case for the top five on offense alone. You know, so you are hurting filling out the back of this. I do think Cabrion Hayes is part of the five, you know, and that's been a reason for me to draft him this year because I think the quantity is going to be there. I remain agnostic. I have become agnostic about the quality. I used to be excited about the quality and now for me Cabrion Hayes is a quantity play because I just don't know if he'll ever turn that prodigious bat speed and you know top-end batted

ball quality into any sort of power because he just hasn't done it for any sustained amount of time. Maybe having a teammate like Tommy Pham could unlock it. Pham himself used to be kind of more of a ground ball guy and found a way to lift it so he has his own story there that he can talk to to haze about and also Pham is a proselytizer of data and tech. So he could be really good for him. I don't know what else I think that it's going to be a lot of mix and match. Maybe Nick Gonzalez or Nick York, one of those two can jump into the top top five. Nick Gonzalez was interesting because he came up last year and he was drafted as a guy that was supposed to make contact and be powerful.

And then in the minors, he had strikeout rates near 30 percent. Then he comes up, he makes a bit of a swing change last year. He strikes out 16 percent of the time in the minors. Oh, that's what I thought of as Nick Gonzalez. And he strikes out 19% in the majors. But the swinging strike rates weren't that much better. He went from 15s and 16s to 13 and 14. So I don't know if the underlying swing data suggests

that Nick Gonzalez can have this kind of a strikeout rate. He may be a 23 to 25 guy. Oops, he has 23.5 as the highest. And I kind of believe that. So if he's that, then it puts more pressure on his power and his power is, I would say middling. So, you know, put it all together. Oops, he says 95 WRC plus.

It's probably enough to keep a job on this team. But if Nick York is blasting it in the minors, Nick York may surpass Nick Gonzalez. Plus they're looking for a shortstop. Maybe they decide at some point that they just need to see if Nick Gonzalez can handle short at all and try Nick York and Nick Gonzalez of the middle. Be one of the worst double play tandems in the big leagues. Right. The Isaac kind of Falefa still there.

They could go the Glover out with him if they decide that's their best path forward. But I'm with you, Nick York. I mean, I think he should have a pretty big opportunity. Forty eight point three percent hard hit rate at triple A. There's power, there's speed, there's a good eye. I mean, what else would you need to see before you give him a chance? Second, better swing strike rates than Nick Gonzalez, like by half almost.

So, you know, anything that Nick Gonzalez can do, I think Nick York can do better. Yeah, you mentioned this earlier, the Pirates number one in bat speed league wide. Really? Yeah, it's the weirdest thing that happened when I looked at their, when I looked at the team, like fourth and blasts and even like the even the results, 11th in barrel rate, 10th in hard hit. And when it comes to process in terms of chase, 11th in chase and 7th in swing percentage, they're not aggressive. They don't chase and they hit the ball really hard and they swing really hard. I think that that second thing is where they really hurt the most.

24th in square up percentage. So whatever they're doing to get that primo bat speed and you know get those great blast and barrel rates fourth and eleventh, that's not what you expect out of the Pirates at all. What they're doing there is maybe costing them line drives and that's usually a good trade-off, but you'll see that it's like the opposite of the Cardinals. The Cardinals had mid-link to bad bat speed, squared everything up and had bad barrel rates. You do want to do things different than the Cardinals these days, probably, but there's something missing with the Pirates and that's probably somewhat of the reason that Andy Haynes was like, oh, because there's some good metrics here, but it's also not turning

into runs as you'd expect. So I wonder if a change in the voice at hitting coaching could be good for somebody that we just don't know yet. You know, there's somebody like Brian Hayes or somebody that is going to hear a new voice and, you know, go somewhere with it. Also, I didn't mention this before, but my concerns about the Reds, I think, are pretty well highlighted here, right? They're worse than the division in bat speed,

worse than squared up percentage, worse than blast percentage. Yeah, they don't chase, but they're not doing a lot of damage. And then that ballpark too, it's like, just do it. Get some guys that have some bat speed, you can crush in that ballpark. And it's just the team with Ellie on it

So like you know, he's taking a lot of their swings and he can't he can't prop everybody up the pitching side looks great for Pittsburgh We've talked about them as an organization that's taken some massive steps forward and pitching development It's not just landing Paul skeens in the draft, right? Jared Jones I think highlights the the changes that have taken place in the organization Bobbitt Chandler not far away Thomas Harrington's a guy you've talked about that you really like. They have quality already, and they have depth in the system coming through.

So what do you think the secret is going to be like this year as far as finding solutions in the back? Do they go full youth movement? Do they get more out of someone that's a veteran holdover? Because one, two, Skeens and Jones, yeah, they can go into a series where those two guys start and they could win the series because those guys can both win their starts.

It's more like, what do we get from Mitch Keller? And how long are they gonna let Bailey Falter and Johan Alviedo be part of the rotation? Yeah, there's been some sort of noise that maybe Bubba Chandler could take a role in the starting rotation, but Bailey Falter threw 142 innings at 4-4-3 ERA last year and is projected by a lot of systems to do about the same again this year. So that's a fifth starter.

That's fine. And he has no options. So you know, he's a DFA if you don't like him and Teams don't really like to and he doesn't he doesn't profile well for the bullpen, right? He throws 90 So, you know teams don't really like to like lose resources if they think he can be helpful in any way They'd rather have him on the team then then DFA him So Oviedo was a little bit slightly different situation because he's coming back from elbow injury

and that might open the door for Chandler maybe to start the season. But on the other hand, Oviedo is also kind of more of a mid to backend starter and he missed all of 2024. So, you know, they could just ramp them up and say, we're not actually even that concerned about how many October innings we kept from Johan Oviedo, you know? So like, we don't need to play around with this. Let's just have him pitch for as long as he can. And, and we'll maybe by Chandler takes over for him, you know, at some point. So I

tend to be conservative with innings projections for top prospects where the major league team has five credible starting pitchers. They're not going to DFA Bailey Falter just to start Bubba Chandler's clock early. No, I will say though, Mike Burrows is kind of a forgotten guy. Had Tommy John surgery, he's not mentioned in the same breath as the top prospects, but he did get back from the injury last year in the second half So maybe he ends up being a bit of a glue guy in the back of the rotation behind some of the more familiar Names that we see on that depth chart in the closer role. We're hoping for a David Bednar bounce back We've talked a lot about the tip pitch tipping problems. He was experiencing last year didn't lose V lo

It seems like he's got the door wide open to be that guy but if it's not Mednar is there anyone else in this group of relievers that pops? I like Colin Holderman actually as the guy behind him. I know that in some places it's listed as dense antenna but Colin Holderman throws harder, has better stuff, is better projected by the projection systems I use. He has a sinker and a cutter, so he's not that susceptible to platoon splits. And he's been a good pitcher in the major leagues, 3-5 ADRA in 135 innings. So he has all the boxes. I've been getting some late shares of Colin Holderman as what I think is the setup guy there.

There you go. Different name that we haven't talked a lot about on this show. Let's get the wind total projection for the Pirates from Pocota 74.8. Too hot, too cold or just right? I was blown away by those bad speed numbers. Before the Horowitz injury I was tempted to say like this is at least they're putting better pieces around you know like that I think the The kind of depth and secondary pieces are better this year. I'm gonna go too cold. I think there's something here I think Nick York comes up. They find a play to play Nick York and Nick Gonzalez I think Andy Rodriguez is gonna be the first baseman on opening day or Henry Davis. I think

Between Andy Rodriguez and Henry Davis one of those guys, you know, really recaptures their old form, the excitement that people had about them. Henry Davis is a 1-1, you know, Andes can play anywhere, so there's some stuff that's happening here. Yeah, I'll say slightly too cold. I think the pitching is really good. I like more of the prospects that could be breaking in sooner rather than later into this group maybe there's a little bit of overflow into that bullpen to where they use some of the guys that could have been starters in the second

half as bullpen support as well wish they would have done more with their bats the soft season because when you have guys like skeins and Jones on club control like What are you waiting for you get that? That's your chance like you're not you're not paying top dollar for top-end pitching and Just go go get literally anything to make your lineup better and they were so quiet throughout the free agent process Let's get to our fantasy favorites sleeper bat from this nl central, you know who catches your eye I had Jordan Walker on there. We did an extensive conversation about him

So I don't need to rehash it but I think all the at bats he wants are waiting for him and he has that top end of bad ball velocity that I like Yeah, I'm gonna go home around this one with Joey Ortiz talked a lot about him at the very beginning of the show But I think you're gonna get a little bit of everything across all five categories I think I'll be good enough to be a steady option even in 12 team leagues as well That's why he gets the sleeper tag Even though he's someone you've definitely heard of prior to this episode. Surprising that Billy Cook didn't get

sleeper bat honors here in the NL Central. He could be the opening day for a Spaceman. Billy Cook got mentioned in multiple infield previews several weeks ago and did not get a mention during the actual Pirates preview. But yeah, there's opportunity for him to possibly carve out a role. Main reason, a lot of swing and miss though

That's the thing holding Billy cook back. That's why they might not let Billy cook. That's right much swing and miss Sleeper starting pitcher from the NL Central. Everyone's heard of him Nester Cortez. I just like him I think he's better than people think he is just flat-out Undervalued for you. I'm gonna say Ben Brown I know you mentioned the the model not being quite as high on him after the revision but when I look at guys like Colin Rae and Javier Asad and I think about what a team really needs to do and wants to do to be a dangerous like division winning caliber team. Replace those boring guys with more exciting guys.

You need guys like Ben Brown. I look at that rotation I think if they're in a playoff series wouldn't you rather have Ben Brown. I look at that rotation, I think if they're in a playoff series, wouldn't you rather have Ben Brown starting at least game four but maybe even game three over Tyon. You're gonna face the Dodgers, let's say you get to the NLCS, you're facing the Dodgers, who do you want to take the ball first? Jameson Tyon or Ben Brown? Probably Ben Brown and like, you know, give me two or three innings and we're going bullpen. Sure, or yeah maybe it's one time to the order for each of them but and like, you know, give me two or three innings and we're going bullpen. Sure. Oh yeah, maybe it's one time to the order for each of them.

But nevertheless, I just think Ben Brown brings some more swing and miss stuff to that rotation that they're going to desperately need. On the relief pitcher side, who's your sleeper from the NL Central? Ah, man, I think it's Holderman. I'm just struggling to find somebody that I can really put my hands around.

Nate Pearson, I mentioned that Porter Hodge is closing over Ryan Presley by the end of the season. It could be Nate Pearson too. So I like the Pearson-Hodge selection there. And I think you could in a draft and hold, you might be able to draft Presley, Hodge, and Pearson and then lock up the Cubs situation without costing too much for you. Yeah. Hopefully you're right if you take three swipes at the same bullpen.

Yeah. I've seen people try it and it's option number four that actually comes through and gets the same. I've been doing a lot of two swipes at the Phillies with Kirk O'Ring and Jose Alvarado. Cause that's two. That's pretty, that's cheaper. Two seems reasonable.

Two definitely seems more reasonable. I'll mention Graham Ashcraft again here. If we're gonna get Graham Ashcraft as a reliever I think that's going to work very well for the Reds and could be a nice surprise if they do in fact at some point Move on from Alexis Diaz as their closer or Alexis Diaz is just the most wobbly skilled closer in the game again for another Year that could be a possibility as well But yeah, we ran a little long on the NL Central preview. Eno got carried away talking about the Brewers again. Who would have thought?

Yeah, I think I blame it on me. We got a whole Brewers channel in there. We got all 30 teams covered. So jump on in that Discord. You can join with the link in the show description. One more reminder to get those hive mind rankings in. We'll turn those around here by the end of the week. You can find Eno on Blue Sky, enoserus.p.sky.socialsocial, imdbr.p.scot.social. Thanks to our producer Brian Smith for putting this episode together. You got a nice cardinal way in in the background earlier so I will tip the cap by saying that on our way out the door. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Wednesday.

Thanks for listening.