Rates & Barrels - 2025 NL West Team Previews

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

Eno and DVR begin their 2025 Team Preview series in the National League West! How much have the Dodgers improved following their World Series title in 2024? Do the Padres need another late winter trade to keep pace with the other NL playoff teams? Will the D-backs find their way back to October after a busy offseason? Can the Giants exceed expectations in Year 1 of the Buster Posey Era? And, are the Rockies better than some of the projections suggest? Rundown 1:55 2025 Los Angeles Dodgers Preview 17:15 2025 San Diego Padres Preview 29:54 2025 Arizona Diamondbacks Preview 43:31 2025 San Francisco Giants Preview 56:51 2025 Colorado Rockies Preview 1:07:08 A Selection of Sleepers From the NL 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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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.ca. This is an ad from BetterHelp Online Therapy. We always hear about the red flags to avoid in relationships, but it's just as important to focus on the green flags. If you're not quite sure what

they look like, therapy can help you identify those qualities so you can embody the green flag energy and find it in others. BetterHelp offers therapy 100% online and sign up only takes a few minutes. Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com. Welcome to Rates and Barrels Tuesday, February 11th. Derek Van Riper, Enosaris here with you. On this episode we kick off our team preview series. Today we begin with the five teams in the NL West and try to keep these two about 12 minutes on average per team that will be a challenge for both of us

We did three team previews in each episode last year now. We're doing five so We will be entertaining and maybe concise hopefully entertaining above all else though. That is not usually concise Rarely concise on this pod before we get started be sure to check out connections sports edition It's a new game for sports fans from the athletics basically a daily dose of trivia very fun to solve that every day I've done the puzzle since it was in beta. It is awesome. You can check it out athletic.com Connections pick that part of your day. It's nice to have routines, right? Nice to have puzzles in your life.

Regular connections is fun too, if you're looking for a challenge outside of sports, but sports connections gets two thumbs up on this show. My older son and I have been doing sports connections, which is mostly just me doing it and him watching. Not racing yet? The baseball ones he can get. You can race eventually, I think that's gonna be the future. racing puzzles side by side one other thing you can do you can join our

Discord inside the discord you can find links to team channels strategy talk rankings all sorts of good stuff We do have Enos pitching rankings going live on the athletic on Wednesday So if you'd like a subscription to the athletic the athleticcom slash rates and barrels is the best place to pick that up. Okay that's it that's the whole preamble today. Let's get started with the defending World Series champions Eno. The Dodgers an offseason full of upgrades in pursuit of a World Series repeat and this is just absurd right you look at what at what they lost, very little, what they brought in. You lose Gavin Lux in the position player group. You bring in Haesong Kim and Michael Conforto and you could also factor in Tommy Edmond

being there for the full season since he was a trade deadline acquisition who was hurt in the second half and came back late last year. On the pitching side, Blake Snell, Roki Sasaki, Tanner Scott, and Kirby Yates losing Walker Buehler, Jack Flaherty, and Ryan Brazier. Simple question before we dig into the hitter specifically, is this team better than the one that just won the World Series at the end of last season? Is on paper, but I have one little nugget about this

that kind of was surprising to me when I saw it. And this team is old. There's obviously like a real pattern to this the way the Dodgers are built. They're run so incredibly well. What they do is they spend a lot of money and time and effort on developing players and then they also get free agents and they kind of want to just always supplement with young players. And I think they have a lot on the way. If you think about Jose De Paula and Dalton Rushing and River Ryan, and I really like Zaheer Hope and we talked about him with Keith Law the other day. So I do think help is on the way. And I do think that there's a lot to be

said for what's coming. I don't know if they're ready and if they're here yet. And what I saw when I looked at the lineups was last year, they were the eighth oldest team by the lineup. And then I took it. So they recently just signed Enrique Hernandez, right? When you build a bench, it's really easy now. It's Enrique Hernandez, Miguel Rojas, Chris Taylor, and Austin Barnes. No room for anybody. No Andy Páez, no Josh Altman, no none of those guys. And if you think about that, that's got to be one of the oldest benches in baseball. And I took all of their 13 players that, you know, I have making their 26 day, 26 man opening roster and I put them together and their average age was 31.

No team last year had an average age over 30. So maybe they will have to get some out of Dalton rushing and maybe any pies will still play. And maybe those guys are good enough to paper over injuries But I do think this is one of the oldest I would say that this will be a top three Oldest position player core in baseball this coming year whether or not that matters I don't know, you know old is pretty relative like they'll be they'll probably have an average age around 30 31 and you know the youngest teams are 27. So it's pretty relative.

But you know, you can see how Freddie Freeman post surgery, what is, what's it going to look like? You know, that was a pretty big ankle injury. I know, I know he hit one of the biggest home runs in World Series history, uh, you know, on that ankle when it didn't have surgery, but it's worth thinking about. Mookie Betts' hard hit rates did not recover from some early season injury last year. You know, Shohei Otani's coming off of surgery. Uh, T'Oscar's past 30, Edmund's past 30, Muncie's past 30, Conforto's past 30.

So the youngest guys, the youngest regulars they have is Will Smith, who's like at this point I think 29 or something, and Haesyeon Kim who's coming over at 26. So that's an injection of youth and speed that they'll need, but there are questions about Kim as well. So just saying, this is a really good positional core. Obviously it is the best projected team in baseball. They run things really well But there are ramifications for long postseason runs and it is an older team if you want a crack of daylight You know and you're a fan of a team other than the Dodgers

Think about how old they are think about how old they are. Think about how old they are. And despite that, right, we love the Pekota projections here over from baseball prospectus. The Dodgers, despite their old age, are projected to score 830 runs in the 2025 season that is easily the highest total in the league. The only other team above 800 are the New York Mets. So even with that, you're kind of baking in some lost time, right?

I mean, it's just- Last year's oldest team. Last year's oldest team? The Yankees usually do well in this. The Yankees were- It was the Mets. Oh, the Mets were, wow. I don't think I would've- The position player-wise.

It makes some sense though, once you start to break it down a bit. I do think when you look at how the projections line up for this group, it is a strong, strong group. They can lose a couple of guys at any given time and still have enough in the cover, right? Andy Pahes doesn't have a spot, even on the bench potentially.

That's a good problem to have because Andy Pahes would be a regular on 20 teams in Major League Baseball, maybe more. I mean, I feel like that's underselling a little bit. The thing I'm most curious about in the position player group is actually how Haesong Kim fits in. Like is he actually going to be an everyday guy and was there something the Dodgers saw from him in the KBO that other teams were not onto? Because

I think that was a surprising move when it happened since it was pre-Gavin Lux trade. And I'm also wondering too, is it easier to steal bases in Major League Baseball than it is in Korea? This is the most galaxy brain offseason thought I've had so far. But with the engagement, 17 has a projection way too low. Yeah, I mean, it just there's a few things about Kim that I find sort of fascinating. And I just didn't see the Dodgers adding a player like that. So there must be some things they really like about him. And the projections all seem a tad light.

So, curious to see where it goes. I think the other built-in defense though of having such an old position player core is having great pitching, right? I mean, you can pretty easily see that, well, if they're not scoring enough runs, they're probably going to be very, very good at run prevention. If you're watching us on YouTube, we're using the bat X projections for hitters when we look at them. We're using oopsie for pitchers just to have more stuff influence in there,

just to kind of go that direction. And I'm gonna sort by innings when we look at pitchers too, because this is the big question about this group. How much injury risk have they amassed in this rotation? Right. You add all of it, but it's high end. It's, it's guys that can pitch like aces that have bad health grades. Right.

So between Snell, glass now, Roki Sasaki, Otani coming off the injury, Yamamoto who missed about half of his first season with the Dodgers last year. It's a lot of questions just within that group. And then you get some glue guys that kind of creep in. Like Tony Gonsolin might throw a lot more innings than people expect. I see a 143 on the screen from Fangrafts. That'd give him the fourth highest total of all the Dodgers. And that's not what you think of when you think of Dodgers pitching as it is constructed. I'm taking the under on Snell at 170. We have a high, an innings total high

in the last three seasons, two seasons of 140. And I believe that'll be the high this year. Maybe Snell gets to like 145 or something, but I think it'll be more like 140 from Snell, 140 from Miyamoto, 125 to 130 from Glassnow. That means more innings from the back end. And specifically, Dustin May, I think, is going to get more innings. And maybe Tony Gonsolin. I think this seems like a lot of innings also to give their starters. They usually have some of the lower innings totals from their starters, because they usually have good bull pens.

I don't know how many Bobby Miller and Michael Grove and Landon Mack will get this year. I think, isn't Michael Grove hurt? Think Michael Grove is hurt. Or is that Gavin Stone? Gavin Stone is hurt. They've stacked up a lot of injuries. That's the- River Ryan is hurt. River Ryan is very hurt. No, Michael Grove is hurt. Gavin Stone. Gavin Stone. They've stacked up a lot of injuries. That's the River Ryan is hurt.

River Ryan is very hurt. No, Michael Grove's hurt, too. He had a shoulder injury that took him off the NLDS roster. Anyway, somebody will be healthy enough between Bobby Miller, Landon and Landon Nack to maybe get to seventy five eighty. Maybe that Dustin May number is light. You know, Dustin May has no options left, and they're going to do a six man rotation. And Shoji Otani is not going to be healthy to begin to begin the season.

So I think they're going to start Snell, Yamamoto, Glasnow, Gonsolin and May and Sasaki. Yeah, I could see Dustin May ending up more important than people realize. And it's been a long road back for him had an esophagus problem that cost them some time after rehabbing back from Tommy John surgery. So if you're looking for two guys that will be more important at least in the regular season than you would expect on paper, Gonsolin and May are probably those guys. And then it leaves them this option with Bobby Miller to sort of deploy him in whatever role

makes the most sense. If the command is better and he just looks more like he did when he debuted, then maybe he's part of that extra starter sort of mix. If not, then he becomes part of a really nasty bullpen. The addition of Tanner Scott to what was already a good group and Kirby Yates being added in there is huge. You look at Scott, Kopec, Yates, Trinen, Evan Phillips, I think they're going to spread the saves

around a little bit, but I still look at Tanner Scott as someone who's a little bit undervalued, coming off of the big free agent deal he just signed. I think 25 saves is very reasonable for him, even if he's sharing a portion of those opportunities with these other high quality options. We had a report from Bobby Nightingale that Michael Kopeck was hurt. It was refuted to some extent from the team itself, saying that he was

pitching through some injury in the postseason and he pitched through it. So how hurt could he be? The over-under on guys in this bullpen that will get hurt and miss a lot of next year is probably one and a half. There's probably close to that in any bullpen, right? I mean, that's just the nature of the game. And relievers get it worse because sometimes their mechanics are worse, their command is worse,

and this will throw harder than the starters even. So, you know, who makes it through is interesting. There is a world in which Bobby Miller is the closer in October. That is a possibility. We've seen this happen with other teams where, you know, the, the guy who starts the years or closer is not necessarily the guy who ends. I'm not saying the Tanner Scott's bad. In fact, I'm just saying that I like this bullpen.

It's pretty good up and down. They will lose somebody out of this bullpen to injury and probably still keep on ticking. It's a little bit older and maybe a little bit more inflexible in terms of options and stuff because all these guys are major leaguers that have run out of options for the most part, but they're all very good. The IL is an opportunity to have a limitless roster, right?

You can just keep putting guys on the shelf and bringing them back and kicking the can down the road. We've seen this for a long time. My favorite, people talk about like, how do we fix the game? How do we do what we do about injury and all this? My favorite new solution is to, you no longer get a new roster spot for a 60 day I.O.

Basically, your 40 man roster is your 40 man roster, those are your players for the year. That would create all sorts of incentives for health in the industry, I believe. That is spicy and something we have to revisit on a different episode because we do not have time right now. Yes, stop, stop, be more concise. Oh God, it's already 14 minutes.

We gotta wrap this up. No, fun fact though about the Dodgers, Kenley Jansen had seven straight seasons with 30 plus saves if you exclude the shortened 2020 season. So he was rolling from 2014 to 2021. The highest save total from a Dodger in the three years since Jansen left is Evan Phillips with 24 saves in the 2023 season. And Kenley Jansen had more saves during his time in Atlanta and Boston in each

year than each year that the Dodgers leader has had. So it's kind of funny that they've like, they leaned so heavily on him for so long and their bullpen hasn't quite been the same since he left. Maybe Tanner Scott nudged him back. And Copac is really good. So it may be 22 and 12. Could be like that again. Health could be a big factor.

So every team, we look at the Picota wind total projection. We discuss it as too hot, too cold, just right. The Picota wind total projection, as of right now, on the Dodgers is 103.9, so basically a 104, on the Goldilocks Porridge Scale, Eno. Where does that number come in for you? I'm going too hot. Last year, we went too cold on a 101.

Wait, that was too light last year. It was too cold and only 198. We thought it was too light last year. It was too cold and only 198. So that's some humble pie for us. I'm also learning, you know, the model's always telling us, you know, these outlier winds seasons are rare. And, you know, push towards the middle. And the other thing is, I think that there are hangovers for going far into the postseason. And the way that John Smoltz always explained it to me was that every pitch in the postseason is worth three in the regular season.

And you know, I don't know if that's necessarily true for the hitters, but I bet you, you know, it can be a long season. One, the way that we also saw it as we go to the Arizona Fall League every year and we see those young guys trying to add an extra 50 plate appearances, 75 plate appearances, and sometimes they look tired. And this isn't even, and the Arizona Fall League is a little bit of slap ass, you know, get your licks in, not a major league postseason where your adrenaline is maxed out every night. So I just think there'll be a little bit of hangover. I'm not saying they're going to miss the playoffs.

Um, I just think that we remember last season they were kicking ass and then there was like a weird period where people were like, this team's not going to make the post or like this team sucks, you know, and I just think that a period like that, that'll cost them from, you know, getting those high. And that period will come when two starters are on the IL and Landon Ack is starting and there's two guys in the lineup who are on the IL. And it just happens to old teams.

I think I'm gonna go just right. I think Picota is onto something here, man. I'm buying all the hype right now. 104 wins, take it to the bank. 100, yeah dude, do not take that to the bank. Please, please do not take that it to the bank. Hunter, yeah dude, do not take that to the bank. Please, please do not take that prediction to the bank. All right, let's move on to the teams that are chasing the Dodgers in the NL West.

Let's start with the Padres. It just feels like they're waiting for the next big trade. We've been speculating on this for a couple of weeks now. Are they gonna flip Dylan Cease to the Orioles? Are they gonna flip Robert Suarez to the Tigers, the Nationals, are they going to flip Robert Suarez to the Tigers, the Nationals? Are they going to find some way to shed some payroll, but also get multiple big league players back to sort of keep pushing while like making like just like pull the roster

apart, break into a few pieces, glue it back together? It worked pretty well with the Juan Soto trade a year ago. I just think they haven't made the similar move to that yet. And it seems inevitable, but spring training getting underway this week, it's kind of like, hey, time's ticking. Is this really going to happen before opening day? I will never count out AJ Prather. He's kind of a rabbit in the hat kind of guy at this point. And it does seem like something could be imminent. There's definitely smoke around Dylan Cease. The one thing that I think that is gonna be difficult

for him, which is at this point in the off season, he's always trying to make the team better. And if you remember with the Soto trade, the Soto trade happened earlier and it made the team worse. And then he used parts from the Soto trade to make the team better, right? Like Drew Thorpe comes over in that and Drew Thorpe goes out to get Dylan Cease.

I don't think he has enough time to pull two pieces like that. Like he's not gonna trade with the Orioles and get prospects that he trades to someone else to get a starting pitcher back, right? That's cheaper than Dylan Cease or whatever it is that he needs. So I think he's stuck building around the edges

and I have some evidence for this. He needed a left fielder and he got one. His name is Jason Hayward-Connerjo. Yeah, yeah. Two players for one spot, they're gonna platoon. You need to bring the player squishing machine back. They, hey, I think AJ Preller caught wind of that. You know, a friend of a friend maybe told him about it and said, it's a great idea.

Now, platoons, of course, are hardly new, but. Taylor's oldest time. It's what you do when you're shopping on the scrap heap and you say, hey, we can make a decent left fielder in the aggregate. We can't find one Jirkson Profar, but we can find something close to Profar if we put these two guys on the roster.

I'm not sure they'll lose that much because if you think about it, Jirkson Profar was not supposed to be like a three win player. You know, last year they got him in a similar situation where like he's one million dollars, you know, and we just need him to kind of be averageish. And if you just want like a win and a half

out of Connor Joe and Jason Hayward, I think you can get it. Yeah, I mean, the snapshot of who's in and who's out for the hitters, it's Hayward Joe, Gavin Sheets on a minor league deal, might not even make the roster, and Elias Diaz behind the plate, and they lost pro far. Hassan and Kim was hurt for a lot of last season, so they already had to replace them.

So they didn't lose that much. My point is they didn't lose that much. Kyle Higashiyoka gone in free agency as well. On the pitching side, Joe Musgrove hurt, not gone, just hurt. Martin Perez for depth and then Tanner Scott and the bullpen, but they've had bullpen depth. They've been five or six deep in the bullpen for a long time. So you can kind of look at them and say, yeah, they're really not that much

worse where, where I think they're in danger if they don't make the deal. And I agree with you, it's not two trades. It's just going to be one. It's going to be one with some major league ready players. It's not a multiple players come back from one deal and then they don't make the deal and I agree with you it's not two trades it's just going to be one it's going to be one with some major league ready players it's not a multiple players come back from one deal and then they have to make a second deal that seems unlikely given the timing if they have injuries with the core that is currently in place their depth is highly questionable now maybe they can make some moves in season to address major injuries that come up but if another round of injuries like the Kim injury hit them this year

They're in big trouble and you look at this projection from the bad X six players in this lineup right now Projected for 600 or more played appearances. So the core is very clearly to T's Machado Merrill Zander Bogarts Jake Cronenworth and Luis Arias like those six guys are going to play as much as they can reasonably play. And the other spots, mixing and matching, platooning, those are wide open at least as we record this on the 11th of February.

So they need A grade health outcomes, I think, if they're going to repeat what they did last year and keep pressure on a Dodgers roster that even though it's full of injury risk, has so much more depth at their disposal right now. Yeah, he has traded away so many prospects AJ Preller has and he's kept some really exciting guys and Ethan Salas and Leo Dallis De Vries,

who, you know, Salas is a catcher and De Vries is a shortstop. They are 18 years old. Right, the Pazuris are moving guys fast. They're not gonna move them that fast. Yeah, and there's not really, I don't really think Tirso Ornelas is an impact player in the major leagues.

And in the parlance of sort of fan-grast future value, they have a 50 and a 60 in Salas and De Vries, and then a 45 in Cash Mayfield who is going to arrive in 2029 according to Fangraphs and the rest are 40s and they just recently had a really cool analysis of what that means and a 40 is just your sort of best outcome is an average Major League player and your like flame out not even makes baseball rate is sort of around 30 to 40%. So that's what you're looking at with those. And the likelihood of a star coming out of that

is on the order of like 1%. So, you know, they have a lot to overcome. Maybe they can grow and change their rating in the future, but they are not close and they are not impact anymore. The cupboard is dry, just as you pointed out. I do think on the pitching side that they have interesting depth in Matt Waldron, who's just like as a knuckle baller,

can just go out there and do what he needs to do. And Randy Vasquez I like because he has a really wide arsenal. And then Johnny Brito is stuck in between the bullpen and the starting rotation, but you know, he has a really nice sinker. So there's some action there. All those guys would be better

if they tomorrow signed Nick Pivetta and pushed Vasquez into the five and Waldron into six. Everything would look better. And if you look at their payroll, they could sign Nick Pivetta without probably crossing the second threshold. So if you think about it as Cease, King, Darvish, Pivetta and Vasquez,

that's a major league five with a credible six and Matt Waldron, and then you can start talking about some of the depth guys. Their reliever core is great. I think Adam Suarez and Estrada I think are, are really good. I like Adrian Morahan. Sean Reynolds is a converted position player. So I'm a little bit more positive about this team than you are, I think. Uh, but I agree that as it is right now, and I just don't think that we're giving him

a complete grade yet on the offseason, as it is right now, there is a depth problem. Just waiting and waiting and waiting. Here's the key to the whole thing also. From a health perspective, were we seeing Fernando Tatis Jr. get completely healthy late last season? You put together the rolling 15-game average of his hard hit rate. And it kind of looked, at the end of last season, you put together the rolling 15 game average of his hard hit

rate and it kind of looked at the end of the season like we were getting back to those peak power numbers from Tatis again. There's a way to read this map and say explosion is happening, you know, for for the Tatis next year, which is to say, look at how strikeout rate has been going down, you know, over the last four or five years. And yes, hard hit rate has been going down with it, but those are some very injurious seasons. I mean, he was not healthy in those years. And if you kind of just take that trajectory and say, okay, can we pair his hard hit rate,

his good hard hit rate with his good strikeout rate, that could be how you get an MVP season. Honestly, he's 26 years old for an Anab Tatis. He has a season where he hit 282 with 42 homers and 25 stolen bases and was a seven-win player. Especially if he's healthy all season and he does something where he hits 40 and steals 20 and hits 290 and for whatever reason, Otani is, you know, behind or hurt or whatever it is, that could sneak into MVP type levels. So, you know, again, 26 is a peak season and with that hard hit rate sort of recovering late last season,

I remain pretty bullish on the prospects of Fernando Tatis Jr. having another great season sometime soon. Yeah. I think it's gonna be critically important for this Padres team in particular to have him healthy and playing at that high level because you could see it with the big trio especially. That's a star-loaded group, so they have ceiling, but I think they have a little more floor

than we saw a year ago as they're currently built again. And maybe Randy Vasquez finally takes that step. We've talked about him on this show a lot as a deep league sort of target, has a lot of pitches. Maybe it's just one more adjustment or two more adjustments with Ruben Diabla. If Suarez is still on the opening day roster, they don't trade him. He's still the clear cut closer there. Do you prefer Jason Adam if they do make a change

or do you prefer Jeremiah Estrada in the ninth? Adam's my guy I think. You know I think uh Estrada got hurt a little bit in the stuff plus revamp. He still has excellent stuff with a a 1-12 stuff plus and amazingly the fast ball and splitter which he never even had when he was with the Cubs are his two best pitches but there are just some bouts of inconsistency with him. And I think they would just give it to the cost controlled veteran, you know, especially someone on the way out because they have Estrada till 2029 and keeping him in setup would keep

him a little cheaper. Did see some usage once they acquired Adam to Adam was working later in games. Estrada was even pitching in the sixth. Adam rarely pitched that early. So I think that gives you a little bit of an indication of how they'd handle it. If Suarez either hurt or traded at some point away from that San Diego bullpen. Looking at the Dakota projections for the win total here, 84.7 is the number as things sit here on February 11th.

Where are you at on this one? You know, too hot, too cold or just right over Over at Fan Grafx, they have an 80 win projection. Yeah, see Fan Grafx and I are reviving on this one. Yeah, I am going to take the over on the 80. And in fact, I'm gonna take the over on the 84. I was gonna say, okay, you gotta you gotta play with the number I put out there, you can't just bring your own numbers. But I can. No, yeah, I'm gonna take the over on that just because I think that he's got one more move

up his sleeve and I think that all he wants to do is make this team better. I don't know that this is, he can't rebuild. Like this is not, rebuilding's not happening right now. Not with those three big contracts on that roster. There's nothing you can do about those. And so rebuilding, there's no like trading Xander Bogarts and getting prospects back.

Like that's not happening. So I think he's gonna do whatever he can to make this team better. I'm standing on the too hot at 84.7 based on what's in front of me right now. Big asterisk there because we don't know what type of trade it will actually be. There are ways for that to completely change

but I'm nervous about the Padres. 82 wins for Fangrass. Fangrass by the way has 96 wins for the Dodders. That's a little bit of where I was coming from on the too hot there but I'm going too cold on the Padres projection. All right, you're usually a Padres optimist most of the time that's been the case. Last year they won 93 games I mean are they that much worse? They're good they're fun and as we said the losses are really kind of limited relative to

what they were already dealing with last year so there's a path for it there as they try to get back and make it to the run and keep the heat on the Dodgers. 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

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Billpayer to reward Slayer. Terms and conditions apply. So, Picota has them projected better than the Diamondbacks? No, I'm doing this in order of last year's finish in the division. The Diamondbacks are projected to take second by Picota. So, let's dig into this for a minute. Let's take a look at what they've got cooking up from their hitter core. And the changes here, I mean, Josh Naylor in as part of the trade that sent Slade Saccone to Cleveland He replaces Christian Walker who left in free agency. Jack Peterson also left in free agency, but they brought in Corbin Burns on the pitching side They also lost Paul Seewald out of the bullpen. So big picture I think you can look at this and say they're probably at least as good as they were last year just in a slightly different way

What do we do with the expectations for Corbin Carroll? He looked like himself in the second half, knowing that there's a shoulder issue that could be lingering there. Are you confident in projections that have him in the high 600 plate appearance range? Do you think 2040 is a level we're gonna see from him again over a full season? I do, and I have a similar chart to Fernando Tatis Jr. This

is Corbin Carroll's hard hit rate against his Woba and they map really well and really tightly and in both seasons got better over the course of the season and I think I've talked to Corbin Carroll about hitting a couple of times and he talks a lot about making choices and that you have to kind of give somewhere to get somewhere else. And the way that I read this is that

maybe it's a two swing thing where, you know, he has a swing that he can do something at the top of the zone that is, you know, a little bit more flat and a little bit more line drivey. And then he has a more scoopy swing than he can do at the bottom of the zone. And he kind of alternates between using those. And when he's at his best, he's, you know, I think he's lifting the ball and hitting it hard. But of course that has trade-offs for his strikeout, right?

Because if he's scooping and hitting the ball into the air, then he's allowing some balls past him at the top of the zone. And you can look at something called VBA, his vertical bat angle, it changed over the course of last season. At the beginning of the season, he was one of the flattest bat paths in the big leagues.

But that doesn't mean it's bad. Juan Soto has a really flat bat path, you know? And that's why he's looking to Tomahawk pitches at the top of the zone and doesn't really wanna scoop at the bottom of the zone. But I think Corbin Carroll has the pieces to put everything together. I guess there's a little bit of sort of durability concerns

when I look at his body, just the size of him. And maybe he's, you know, has to work harder to get to those premium bat speeds and to get to that power. Then a bigger dude like Jordan Alvarez, you know, who just sometimes looks like he's kind of just throwing a toothpick out there and, you know, boom, there goes the ball. Uh, so it's never going to be the easy kind of power like that, but I think he's going to keep the, the power totals above 20, maybe even to 25.

I think he has 30, 30 potential in his best year. I think he has MVP potential in his best year. And he is, I think the, the soul of this team in terms of he's really thinks about leadership and, and what it means to, he takes all the young kids out for dinner on the road And like he's somebody who thinks about you know, how to how to make everyone feel good Sure, he's already planned some outing with Josh Naylor and all the rest of the crew. He's that kind of guy So I think it's good to have that core and then you have this At your core and then you have could tell Marte who's like just an OG.

He's the guy who hits the ball super, super hard. I think the two of them are a little bit different in terms of their accountants and their personalities, but a real great core to have. I think that this team has shown that they're pretty good at twiddling the knobs around it. The Jock that they're pretty good at twiddling the knobs around it. The Jock Peterson signing was pretty good. They've missed on pitching, but Corbin Burns is their best acquisition. The Jordan Montgomery Eduardo Rodriguez ones, where I think they thought they were smart

because they waited the market out and they got those guys late and they got them for cheaper than projections and they got them on shorter deals than people projected. I never really liked those signings. I liked the Corbin Burns signing. This is the best pitcher they brought in since Zach Galen or even better than Zach Galen. Right. I mean, I think having that one-two punch atop the rotation, it certainly looks better on paper.

I think it's gonna be better in reality. Also, I think we've talked about Brandon Fott as a guy that's kinda quietly getting better, might be under-projected a few places too, so he's kind of interesting in the rotation. One of Rodriguez or Montgomery could be a useful fourth starter. That's not a ridiculous story, and that doesn't even mention Merrill Kelly,

and then the other one of Rodriguez or Montgomery being good, and Ryan Nelson being there. So I kinda like the way the rotation's built. They have quality up top, they have depth, they have a little bit of room to get better. I think their bullpen might be a little better than people give it credit for. I love Justin Martinez.

He's a real stuffist guy. And AJ Puck is as well. That's a pretty wild right left combo. And they may do something like the Dodgers where it's 25, 10 10 in terms of saves but Just have a two-headed monster like that and the bullpen is underrated righty lefty Yeah, I mean where the saves come from is a it's a big unknown for me at least AJ Puck had a

36.9% strikeout minus walk rate last season that is absurd that is a That is the stuff that you see from the elite of the elite closers if he gets that role. Having a 36% strikeout rate is already elite. Right. There's just a wide disparity in what we've seen skills-wise from Puck as a reliever versus Puck's 4A as a starter in the big leagues. He is absolutely a top shelf reliever. Martinez is nasty too, so I like that combination. However they use them, I think you can justify going

with the later of the two options from a fantasy perspective. But I don't think people outside of Arizona and fantasy circles realize just how good AJ Puck is as a reliever. Thinking about that hitter core again, just for a moment. I wanna toggle it back over there if you're watching on YouTube. Do you worry about the combination of Josh Naylor coming off of really a career year?

He kind of put everything together his final year in Cleveland. Now he moves into a park where left-handed homers actually get squashed a little bit. So you have to account for that. Ketel Marte's injury history is not great, even though I think the underlying metrics support the type of player he was a year ago. We've expressed concern about Eugenio Suarez being one of those guys that he can go red hot for a half and basically put his whole season together over 80 games and look really lost and like he's fading out of the big leagues in the other half of the season.

And then a guy like Lourdes Gurriel Jr. who kind of does everything well offensively, but nothing exceptionally like that's the supporting cast behind a star like Carole. So maybe there's a few possible ways that that group breaks down. I think if you look at Jake McCarthy and Alec Thomas, McCarthy's projected to play more. Thomas is sort of projected into a platoon with Randall Gritchick, that should be fine.

Perdomo's fine as your kind of bottom 30 order shortstop. Seems like he's important to them and has some of those leadership and soft qualities that matter, even though he doesn't necessarily hit like a top end shortstop. That's not part of the profile. I think this is why I keep looking at this team

and I keep trying to figure out like, how did they score so many runs last year and can they actually repeat what they did with a few new parts mixed into this lineup? And that's kind of the unknown for me. Like maybe what they lose in what they can put on the board, they can make up and run prevention. I think that's sort of how the equation has to come together

for this team to get back into the playoffs this year. I think they're sneaky smart when it comes to hitting coaching. They were one of the first teams to buy a Traject, which is the high-end pitching machine that you know has a hologram of the pitcher and can really replicate spin really well And they have that at home if you look at their home road splits They're pretty wide so I think that there's something about the way they prepare for games at home that really works for them

And then on top of that I think think that they're a platoon type team. They're like a, they got a little bit of the, you know, kind of the giants and tigers and, you know, even the Dodgers at times where they, you know, we just, we have our studs, we have a three or four studs, and then everybody else is just going to play when we think it's the right time. And if you think about it, Lord of Skuriel is a righty, Alex Thomas is the lefty, Randall Grichak, righty, Jake McCarthy, lefty, like there's a lot of lefty righty they can do there. I think that Jordan Lawler is actually kind of underrated importance to this team. He is the, you know, the way that they can toggle some of these things going in

the wrong direction, back in the right direction. And the way that I mean that is Jake McCarthy is, is projected to get 533 player appearances on this team with a 91 WRC+. Alec Thomas' projections range from better than that to worse than that, but none of them are for above 100. So neither McCarthy or Alec Thomas or Geraldo Perdomo are above average bats. And at some point, if you give too many at bats to below average bats, especially if their defense isn know, their defense isn't as good. I think Alec Thomas is a better defender than Jake McCarthy.

I think that 533 for Jake McCarthy is pretty soft in myself, but Lawler's the guy who can come up and be like, uh-uh, you know, Oh, Suarez is in one of his slumps again. I don't care. Put Perdomo over there. Put me in the lineup. He does have talent. I don't care, put Perdomo over there, put me in the lineup. He does have talent and Keith Law was very optimistic about the post-injury outlook for Lawler.

There's nothing more that Lawler can do in the minors. So if Lawler plays really well through spring, I think he makes the roster as a starting shortstop and Perdomo is a utility guy. And that actually changes a fair amount of how I think about it. It raises the floor and raises the ceiling because Lawler could be really good, you know, and give them like that lineup and do things that are pretty important given that they're, you know, giving right now like over a thousand at bats to below average batters right now. I do think losing Jock Peterson as someone that DHs at this stage of his career

Opens the door for more creative usage for Lawler Maybe he's a super utility guy as you outline the scenarios of Katela Marte needs a break He's gonna DH a little bit play Lawler at second play Pardole mode short Use him if Suarez is in a slump use him if someone on the left side of the infield gets hurt I just think there's a few ways it can come together now, now that you are not clogging the DH spot, as we like to say in fantasy, we say it with utility spots. I think the Diamondbacks have a little more give on that roster. I don't, Pavin Smith's another guy that you look at

and you're like, he's gonna play a lot. Yeah, I was just about to say, I don't know, I think we should give him a little love because he hits the ball really hard, he had a really nice barrel rate season, he had like three homers in one game, and there's something to what he can do here here and he can add a dimension that's gonna be like Jock Peterson like in terms of he's a pull it in the air lefty with good plate discipline.

The difference is that Pavan can actually still play in the field. So he's insurance of Naylor is hurt but he might jump into the mix, you know, with Gurriel at DH and Grichick in the outfield. Yeah, I think my takeaway, the more I look at the Diamondbacks roster, is I think Mike Hazen in the front office deserve a little more credit than they get for the flexibility that they have.

They can shift things around. They've got a few different ways to get better. I like what they've done overall, working through the off season. 87.3 is the win total projection from the Dakota. Too hot, too cold, or just right on these Diamondbacks. Too cold. Too cold.

I'm with you. Closer to all just right though. I mean, I think they're a high 80s team that there's a variance around that, of course. But I think they're a really good team. So it wouldn't surprise me at all if they got into the nineties. I actually have them as a just right, actually.

That's where I fell on this one, but I could- I think I'll just go just right. I mean, you know, I do like Lawler, I do like Tommy Troy. They do have more 45s. Their prospect, they have cleaned out most of their prospect cupboard as well. But down list, you have Adrian Del Castillo at catcher that, you know, he's very different. The Moreno has more of a power aspect to him.

And then Drew Jones, former first round pick that might be recovering some of his value and could, you know, end up the season as more of a 50 value. And I like Tommy Troy, so they've got something in the cupboard, but not that much past Lawler. All right, let's move on to the Giants, where the Buster Posey era begins in full. It was a nice off season for Buster, relative to recent off seasons in San Francisco.

They get Willie Adames, big position player ad ad fills a massive need for them at shortstop. You could probably say Jung-ho Lee because of the injury last year is kind of like an addition for 2025 just in terms of expectations, right? I mean, like having him there is going to make a difference for that lineup on a daily basis. They did lose Michael Conforto and Tyro Estrada, but Tyro was gone before the end of last season anyway. Justin Verlander in on the pitching side, Blake Snell out. So I don't know, like it feels kind of like the corners of the roster if the Giants are going to change things in 2025 and be a team that avoids finishing adjacent to the Rockies in this division. There are pathways forward.

One thing I would point out is Jung-Hoo Lee didn't really play last year, you know, for so much of the season that we don't even know what this team looks like when they have Jung-Hoo Lee at his best at the top of the lineup. He is a little bit like Stephen Kwan, but he hits the ball harder than Stephen Kwan, but he plays in a worse park. So they may end up with very similar numbers, but Rho Jung-Hoo is going to hit some more homers than Stephen Kwan.

If he can still play center well, then that's a dimension that they've needed because they fool around in right field with Jastrowski and a platoon usually. They fool around at first base and a DH with Flores right now is listed there, but nearing the end of his career. Lamont Way Jr. is good for OBP, but a little miscast as a first baseman,

it's, you know, there's not that many teams that are willing to go with a first baseman that might not hit 10 homers. And that's why I have a little bit of hope that Bryce Eldridge, which is one of the top prospects in baseball, could come up sometime this year and take that first base situation and make it into a strength.

And if that happens, you can start to tell a story of credible veterans at every position and some mix and match at the places they're bad. Even in the rotation, even if Verlander doesn't work out, I like Hayden Burnsong. He has the type of high stuff, low command arsenal that could just kick into high gear. I think what if he threw, started throwing a sinker instead of a force hammer? He cut his force seam to avoid it from kind of spraying the way it does.

So there's different ways that he could get out of where he is and he has the stuff to, the breaking balls to kind of break out. So I don't think this is a great team, but it's not a bad team. It is not the Rockies. It is a better team than the Rockies. And in fact, you know, you could kind of look at this

and be like, you could see a pop from this team. You know what I mean? In the sort of Diamondbackian way, where like, no one thinks that they're a great team, but oh, well they have some things going on. At least having Adamas and Chapman at the top of the roster makes his team look quite a bit different than it did just two years ago. Elliot Ramos was a pleasant surprise,

a bit of a late bloomer last year just relative to when he was first on our radar as a prospect. Tyler Fitzgerald came out of relative nowhere. Projections don't like Tyler Fitzgerald at all. What do you see from him? I mean swing and and miss is part of the profile, but there's power, there's speed. Seeing the bad ex spit out like an 88 WRC plus projection means he could actually lose his job if he plays at that level on a team that mixes and matches, or he could at least lose a share of his job, but yet he's projected for the fourth most played appearances

in this position player group. The options otherwise, I mean, he's an athlete, and I don't know, I think they didn't like his actions at short. You know the top end exit velocities are not actually that impressive but the arm is good, the legs are good, you know and there are times when he's cut the strikeout rate in the minors so I wouldn't be surprised if he improves that strikeout rate a little bit and is a little bit better than those projections. Like for example his Zips projection is for a 102 WRC plus with like a 240 batting average of 300 OBP and positive on defense. Like that actually

seems pretty likely to me and I don't think he is a right-hander, but I don't think Brett Wisely is going to take the job from him because Brett Wisely does bat left-handed, but he hits the ball even softer and is not quite the same athlete. So I'd be a little surprised if Wisely took it from him. And Marco Luciano just needs to be healthy. And maybe long-term Luciano does take that job, but they're talking about playing him in the outfield, lost his luster as a prospect, and he just hasn't been healthy. So he needs to just play somewhere

for 300 straight plate appearances before we start talking about him taking anybody's job. So I like Tyler Fitzgerald better than that projection right there. Yeah, I do think he's interesting. I mean, if you're looking for a stat-cast lollipops, I thought a 100th percentile sprint speed for Tyler Fitzgerald too. So if he's getting on base, any 300 clip even, lots of green lights,

even if you have some questions about the power, a lot of ways he could be good from a fantasy perspective and getting him off of shortstop. Those defensive numbers will probably look a little bit better as well. But I think he's a little bit of a polarizing player since the projection systems are not really in agreement on him. Any sleepers in that depth group? Anybody that you could see emerging to exceed expectations? Matt Chapman ran more than expected last year. I don't know if I would, now that he has the extension bank on all those steals coming back,

but it really looks like the power questions we had from him at the end of his time in Toronto have been answered in the time since he left. If you toggle the Bat-X and you look at their regulars in terms of WRC+, they have Chapman, Lee, Adamas, Ramos, and Wade as above average, so they have five guys. But if you toggle that over to Oopsy and you do that same thing, a name appears at the top as Gérard Encarnacion with a 106 WRC Plus projection. That is because bat speed is incorporated into Oopsy.

He found that it improved his second half projections if he included bat speed after the first half last year. Jordan Rosenblum did and so he's added bat speed and Gerrard Encarnacion last year had the ninth best bat speed in baseball in a virtual tie with Aaron Judge. That's quite a find to get out of the Mexican league like that. I, I kind of think of him as a Jorge Soler type where there are flaws to his approach, but he has wicked, wicked good bat speed. And this is hard for me, because I love Wilmer Flores.

He is one of the nicest guys, and we've seen emotion from him on the field that we rarely see. He's told me just the smartest little nuggets about baseball in life, and they still do the friends clap for him every time he gets to the plate in San Francisco. I just think he's a fun guy and a nice guy, but 68 WRC+, 33 years old last year, Wimmer

Flores, even the projections when you get to 33, you don't believe the projections is hard. So I think that's a soft point in the depth chart where he's atop the DH situation. So Gérard Encarnacion, I think, could take that job. If we do it, we have to build a bench, man. We're not doing enough building to bench him. Yeah, building a bench takes time. You and I are not skilled in carpentry. Well, you got Troy, you got Tom Murphy, you gotta have a backup catcher. Tom Murphy is the backup catcher.

You got to have a backup shortstop, which might be Fitzgerald, but wisely. So we got wisely on this team. I think you got to have a backup center fielder. I don't think Elliott Ramos is that so Grant McCrae or Luis Luis Matos wasn't a good centerfielder. Centerfielder is a pain spot for this team. And that leaves you with a spot for Jharar and Carnacion, I think.

Because Flores is your starter at DH and Wade is your starter at first. Yeah, I do think there are some paths for Jharar and Carnacion to end up with a lot more playing time than expected. And that is a woefully thin bench in San Francisco right now, as you just described it, a wobbly bench. I also think they could sign Mark Kana pretty quickly.

That would be a good fit for them. Yeah, I could see that sort of move happening. I did ask the folks in our Discord, in the Giants channel, if there was anything they're particularly excited about with this team for the upcoming season, got a response from Nimjaj. Hard to be excited about anything, not just because of the behemoth in our division.

If I had to pick one though, starting pitcher depth, yep, that's right, the most exciting thing is that we have a number of starting pitchers that may be good enough to hang around in a big league rotation for a few months, but I am a pitching nerd, and I think having more data on Birdsong, Landon Roop, Jordan Hicks, Kyle Harrison, et cetera,

will be interesting if nothing else. If one or two of them pops, we could actually have a top five rotation, or at least a band of starters at the end of the year. Yeah, I mean, I think Mason Black could end up in the bullpen where his two-plane fastball, you know, I think could play up, but he's interesting. Carson Wisenhutton has, I believe he's the change-up dude. The change-up dude. Do I have that right? Change-up, 80 he's interesting. Carson Wisenhunt has, I believe he's the change up dude.

The change up dude. Do I have that right? Change up, 80 change up. Yes, Carson Wisenhunt is the change up dude. He has struggled to a 542 ERA last year, but that was also probably somewhat ABS related. And if you look at his swinging strike and strikeout rates they are really really impressive in the minor leagues so Wison Hunt

represents an interesting amount of depth and then Rup you know at 26 kind of in between the starting rotation and the bullpen he may not have the stuff to make a conversion 103 stuff plus what you find is you usually lose about five points, five to seven points of stuff plus, going to the rotation from the bullpen. So he's right on the border there. However, Landon Rupp does have a elite curve ball, an average sinker, he's developing a cutter.

So if he comes back, cutter, sinker, curve, change, he could have the arsenal he needs to be a starter and certainly could work out. So I do think that there is an interesting amount of starting pitcher depth there. I think when you look at a guy like Verlander, we talked about him when they acquired him, it's less ceiling than there used to be,

but probably a better floor than the typical number three, number four starter candidate. So I think he could add a little something. A lot of these guys are at least usable in their home park from a fantasy perspective too once you get past web and Ray maybe you're streaming a little more often with this group but that's still fine that's a it's a good group I agree with NimYaj good depth here and maybe that's the thing that could help them pop a little bit and exceed expectations is keeping that group healthy and having a

couple of the young guys take a step forward. 78.2 is our current win total projection that I'm seeing from Picota, Eno, too hot, too cold or just right for these giants. Too cold, this looks like a 500 team. Things could pop right to do better than that. I think Deval will return to grace, may even become the closer again, but if not, at least give them a two-headed guy at the back. I think Verlander has a little bit of juice left, and I think that lineup has some intriguing

names. Plus, it's just a little better with the Adama signing. My favorite random idea that I saw in one of our group chats this offseason is that if Jordan Hicks doesn't stay in the rotation, that he's actually the biggest threat to become a closer again, right? think about the money they gave him think about the issues they ran into with Deval last year maybe that's a outcome that's makes Jordan Hicks a little more draftable than people realize I hadn't really thought of it that way. Would it make them one of the best bullpens in the big leagues I feel like if they if Deval is like Deval and Ryan Walker is there and Hicks is the closer, that's three really good relievers.

I'd like that quite a bit if they went that route. Hope they do. Let's move on to the fifth and final team in this division. The Colorado Rockies on the screen on YouTube, it says they're not that bad. It really depends on how bad you think they are. I mean, we can kind of work backwards a little bit on this one. The Picota win total projection on the Rockies is an even 55 as things sit this morning.

Is this really a 55 win team? What? 55? 55 seems pretty aggressive in the negative direction, doesn't it? Oh my goodness, what? Let me try to find where I have this here. The Fangraphs has them with 65.

That seems about right. Yeah, 65 feels right. So my first thought is like, you know, it's on a list somewhere for like one of the worst 20 teams of all time, I feel like. Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at the projections for the position players right now. Ezekiel Tovar, Bretton Doyle, and Ryan McMahon,

I think all comfortably project for 600-plate appearance roles. And two of those guys play up the middle, and two of them are great defenders up the middle, right? So they're not horrible at shortstop and center field. They're actually probably good in those two spots. And that was actually a stated organizational goal at some point. There was somebody asking, what do the Rockies do?

And they're like, we like to be good up the middle. Yeah, sure. Everyone does. I saw an interesting thing from our friend Jason Collette in one of his pieces at Roto Wire that Jacob Stallings, the very old catcher. That's not nice. The veteran catcher they have that did some really interesting visual training, and that helped him turn things around last year It was at least a thing. There's okay. The Rockies are trying some stuff They've got a like a vision specialist working with guys and perhaps that that explains it

It's also playing half your games in Coors can help boost offensive performances We know that from the decades of watching them try to build teams in this ballpark But you know Michael Tolya a sleeper for some, is interesting, at least from a power perspective. Nolan Jones was on a 30-30 pace in 2023 for the time he was in the big leagues. He was just really hurt last year. And then you get some guys like Tyrone Estrada, Chris Bryant there on the mega deal, kind of like their version of the Anthony Rendon deal.

But I think Chris Bryant may doesn't project as negatively from the I don't want to be here today vibes. I think Chris Bryant's more like it sucks that I'm hurt. I'm trying to be here. I'd like to be here. So you look up and down this group, Jordan Beck is a guy that we talked about I think in our outfield preview. They have some intriguing names on the position player side.

It's just weird when you look at them, not a single hitter projects for a league average WRC plus across this entire group. I was gonna address that for a second. I do think that WRC plus to some extent is broken for Colorado. And it's not necessarily about what happens in Colorado, which is that there is a hangover for these hitters What happens is they see fastballs at home and then they don't see any fastballs and that they see all fastballs at home

They don't see any fastballs on the road basically because the league is going away from fastballs But in Colorado those secondary pitches don't break and so they see a bunch of fastballs at home They have a fastball approach and that makes sense if you think about Tovar swinging at everything, you know? Like a lot of these guys have big strikeout rates, and they're trying to hit the ball hard at home, and they're seeing fastballs, and they go on the road, and they're like, where do all the fastballs go? So they're worse on the road than you'd expect,

so if you compare them, you know, themselves to what they are at home, to what they are on the road, some of it is that they're better in Colorado than you'd expect, some of it is they're worse on the road than you'd expect. And so I think that if you ask me without looking at WRC+, how many of these guys could be like league average players, I actually think they could have two or three. Yeah, I was going to say three or four. I was going to say three or four was a possibility. I don't think that's ridiculous. Yeah, McMahan, Jones and Tovar, to me, if you put them in another organization and they were playing every day in regular circumstances, I think they would be league average hitters.

At least. And for fantasy people, don't care. They just want the goodies. What's nice about this team is even though they strike out a lot, of course, one of the biggest things that Coors does is inflate your batting average and balls and play. And so you can have these bigger strikeout rates, but okay batting averages. And that's actually what you see for a lot of these guys. McMahon with a 28.5 and a 240.

Tovar with a 25.4% strikeout rate and a 260 average. Doyle at 245, even though a 28.4. So like, you know, you look at Nolan Jones, you say, oh, 29.4% strikeout rate projected that's not good. Then you think well this is speed, this is power, this is cores and I think Jones has been falling a little bit in drafts and is quote-unquote sleeper and I got Tyra Strader for bucking my auto new draft last night. I feel like he might just be the starter there until Adel Amador takes it from him. And he might benefit from from Colorado as well. So those are my two kind of favorite sleepers

from this group. They seem to go later in drafts than they should, I think. Yeah, I don't mind Jordan back either. I think there's a chance that Jordan backs another power speed guy with some swing and miss that ends up being pretty good in this this outfield mix for the Rockies this year. So it's not as ugly as it was maybe even a year ago, even though it's far, far from perfect.

I wish there was a way to make it work for you Rockies fans. It's just the nature of the beast, I guess. We were told once that like, they're working on like an eight game. They have to be a 90 win team, true talent to win 82. Something that we've heard here on this podcast from somebody who works in baseball. So that park and that altitude is a major impediment. I mean, just to think about that, if you want to make the playoffs, you kind of

want to have an 89, 91 team, which means you've got to build a 98 win team. If that's true. I don't know if it's necessarily all the way true. I think there's maybe ways to kind of do some interesting things to maybe combat what the problem is, but they're not really doing anything that interesting. They're kind of going at it from a sort of traditional standpoint. And that's why you've got a Feltner-Gomber-Marquez situation. I don't know if I will roster a single Colorado pitcher anywhere.

It's nice that they're going to have Marquez back. Feltner was pretty interesting last year. I think they're extremely tough to roster because you don't want to use them at home ever. You have to be in very deep leagues, like NL only leagues and draft and holes like very, very late. If there is one, it's maybe a guy that we haven't seen pitch in the big leagues yet chase dollander I mean he was great last year between high a and double a the handful of names you could think of off the top of your head starters that you've actually ever wanted to roster in that ballpark, you know Baldo Jimenez at his peak very briefly and

Anybody else like it's it was never comfortable. I think Ulysse Chassine early in his career maybe. I think Dollander has really, really good stuff. John Gray had to deal with this at the beginning of his career. There's a chance they have another good starter. Then you have to adjust for the park in Chase Dollander. Tons of strikeouts moving through high AA last year. I think they'll try and get a lot of innings out of him. So I wouldn't write that off completely in the necessary leagues where I think you

might actually find value we didn't talk about their bullpen on the reliever preview Seth Halverson had the fourth best location plus among all pitchers with a low filter five innings pitched last year he had the same stuff plus number as Griffin Jacks in the twins bullpen who we really like it's four seamer sinkeritter, and slider. Probably one of the most exciting relievers we've seen in Colorado ever. And that's an area where if you look back at the history. He sits a hundred.

Yeah, he sits a hundred. You can look back and you see guys that had multiple years of success, like Houston street and Brian Fuentes. This is better stuff than those guys in terms of the raw arsenal. So I'm starting to talk myself into the possibility that Seth Halverson could actually make it work and give us at least a pitcher that we could maybe be excited about for fantasy purposes again,

despite the ballpark. Yeah, well, how did Victor Vodnik work out? He didn't really get that much of a chance, right? Come on. He has worse stuff, but he sits 98, worse strikeout rates. He's not as good a pitcher, but yeah, I mean, you paid pretty hard for those nine saves

with a 428 ERA and a 148 whip. And I'm just a little worried that it'll happen with Halverson too, but maybe it's better. And one thing I also wanted to point out about Chase D'Alder is that, one thing that Colorado tends to do a lot is if you look at locations on four seam fastballs, they throw lower in the zone than anybody else because I think they're afraid of the

homers and it's kind of an old school organization. Maybe they won't do that with Chase Dollander. And the reason I say that is because when you're a first round pick, there's a, you know, most organizations, even more progressive organizations will have a like, don't be the guy who broke the first round pick, you know? So if Chase Dollander comes in there and is like, no, I throw my high, my four seam high in the zone for whiffs and he's got a two ERA, don't be the guy to be like,

oh, you can't do that in Colorado. So maybe he gets through untouched and manages to have the same approach in the big leagues. Hermon Raquez had some okay years. Yeah, he'd be the other starter that probably fits into that conversation of occasionally usable starter. You were nervous about it,

but in deep enough leagues, it at least made sense. So, Dollander and Halverson, I think, are actually kind of fun to watch, potentially, in Colorado on the pitching side this year. And we don't say that very often. We hit this up top, 55 from the Picoto, wind total projection, too hot, too cold, or just dry. I'm definitely too cold on this.

I'm more in line with 60 plus, like you'll see over at Fan Graf's. Yeah, you convinced me, too cold. On the strength of a bullpen that has more stuff in it than we're accustomed to. Some fantasy favorites before we go, a sleeper hitter from these teams that we talked about today.

Do you got a pick on that side? A sleeper hitter from these teams that we talked about today. Do you got a pick on that side? A sleeper hitter for this group. I'm gonna go with Nolan Jones. I just like the power, the speed, the draft cost. I've got him in a couple places. You can get him to be your fifth outfielder in 15 team leagues. There are very few situations that I would like to buy in

more than a power speed outfielder in Colorado. Yeah, and I'll clarify when we say sleeper, it doesn't mean someone you've never heard of before. It might just be someone who's undervalued in drafts right now. I think Nolan Jones could get back to being useful in very shallow leagues. He has enough skills to actually be a 10-team league outfielder again in 2025. I'm going to put Jordan Lawler's name back into the conversation here. I think there's a lot of ways he can fit on that roster in 2025. I'm gonna put Jordan Lawler's name back into the conversation here. I think there's a lot of ways he can fit on that roster in Arizona.

And as you alluded to, really nothing for him left to prove in the minor leagues anymore. It's just a matter of staying healthy. How about a sleeper starting pitcher from this group? I'll throw my name out there. You mentioned Hayden Birdsong. It just comes down to the fastball and fixing that. He's got three above average pitches, needs to improve the command if he's not going to to the fastball and fixing that. He's got three above average pitches,

needs to improve the command if he's not going to improve the fastball, but there's a few ways for it to work for him. Maybe he starts off in a multi-inning relief role, becomes a starter later in the year, but I'm definitely intrigued by Birdsong. He's a guy that's got, I think, three pitches. They have a whiff rate above 30%

using the baseball savant whiff rates, of course. It's hard to find young guys like that who only really need to fix that fastball. So I'm in on Birdsong as a sleeper starting pitcher. Yeah, and I would have used him, but you've pushed me into a corner and I'm gonna go with Dustin May, who has five, you know, 2022 had five pitches above average by stuff plus top and stuff.

And he is out of options. He can't go anywhere. They can't put them in the minor leagues and they know, and he knows that free agency is coming and that he needs to do something and this is his time. So I think there's a lot of sort of aligning interests happening there. Yeah, I like that call. Pick 400 over at the NFBC in the last 10 days. This is more of a true sleeper, a guy that was, we were excited about for a while and has now finally

got a chance to get back into the mix for the Dodgers. How about a sleeper on the relief pitcher side from the NL West? Well, Justin Martinez is going ahead of AJ Punk, which we had a conversation about this and I was suddenly like, hmm, I think he should, but that's a lot of like, I don't know. You know, I do love Justin Martinez's stuff. I just don't know according to his price if he's a sleeper. One person that is dirt cheap in giraffes right now is Camilo Deval and it's fairly simple to see him

coming back and being coachable again and doing the right things and blowing everybody's socks off with his 98 stuff and being back in the closer role. All right, so you're sticking with Deval as a guy that you like as a bounce back sleeper, going outside the top 300 overall right now. So you are getting him very late. I'll bring Jason Adams name back to the conversation.

I wanted to pick Jeremiah Estrada when I started doing the research for this episode because the K rate is higher. But the usage last year to me, clear indicators that Adam probably moves into that chair if anything happens to Robert Suarez in that group. You just don't use a guy in the sixth inning on a regular basis who's going to become your closer. I think that's the last good clue we had late in the regular season a year ago from the Padres. And if you do want a sleeper that you haven't heard of, I think that Gérard Encarnacion is an interesting one.

I mean, you have to watch and wait to see if they actually do sign Marc Canha, which would turf his value. But if Gérard gets a chance, he could hit 240 with 20, 22 homers and be very interesting in some deeper leagues. Has not been drafted inside the top 400 of an NFBC draft in the last 10 days. That's more of a true sleeper. That's a true sleeper.

If you made it to the 71st minute, you got the one true sleeper in our NL West team previews. So congratulations on making it to the end. We really appreciate you for doing that. Join the Discord, the link is in the show description. If you got some questions about these teams, be able to drop them in those team channels. We're happy to chat with you in there.

You can find Eno on Blue Sky, enoseris.bsky.social. You can find me, dvr.bsky.social. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.