Rates & Barrels - 2025 Outfield Preview, Part 3

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

Eno and DVR continue their position preview series in the outfield with a focus on middle and late-round options (~Pick 200-300 overall). Can you find enough value in the later rounds to wait for these players at a discount? (Note: This is part three of a three-episode series focusing on the outfield, with another group of very late outfielders to consider coming in an episode with UT-only players.) Rundown 3:05 ADP Tier 7 -- Jurickson Profar, Jung Hoo Lee, Jake McCarthy, Jorge Soler, Alec Burleson & Willi Castro* 18:25 ADP Tier 7 (Continued) -- George Springer, Brendan Donovan, Jesús Sánchez, Byron Buxton & TJ Friedl 35:44 ADP Tier 8 - Lars Nootbaar, Nolan Jones, Garrett Mitchell, JJ Bleday, Jo Adell, Evan Carter & Matt Wallner 58:05 ADP Tier 8 (Continued) Michael Conforto, Wilyer Abreu, Jordan Walker & Roman Anthony 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 Share your Positional Rankings in the HiveMind Ranks for Outfielders: https://forms.gle/59oP2HGp8nNXFcky6 Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels 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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We have been talking about outfielders each of the last two episodes. We left off yesterday's show in tier 7 which is pretty meaningless to most folks. Basically players at this point in the show are guys available after pick 200 overall. We used the NFB C's ADP from the last 14 days just to get a snapshot of where players go and we pick up right where we left off yesterday. Now, tier 7 includes a bunch of guys that I mentioned. Jurksom Profar, Jung Ho Lee, Jake McCarthy, Jorge Saler, Alec Berlison, George Springer,

Brendan Donovan, Heysu Sanchez, Byron Buxton and TJ Friel. It could be two or three tiers if you want to chop it up that way. That is absolutely fine. The first three guys in the group Elliot Ramos said Rick Mullins Lotus Gary l jr. Covered at the very end of the episode just before this one I think this worked out perfectly our decision to crack open tier 7 At the end of yesterday's episode means that we have breaking news that we can fold right in jerks and profar Was a free agent

until we finished the recording yesterday. Now he's a member of the Atlanta Braves, gets a three year deal. Jerks and Profar of the players I mentioned in this tier that we have not talked about already hit more home runs than anybody else in the group last season, 24 homers. That is not something I expected to see

when I put this group and the next tier all together on one leaderboard. Part of that was extreme durability. Jurics and ProFar played 158 games with the Padres last year. It was 668 played appearances. It also chipped into 10 steals. The counting stats were phenomenal.

It was a season that I think even the most Optimistic jerks and pro far folks out there probably didn't see coming right? It's a career high in homers in his age 31 campaign Congrats to him on getting a three-year deal though after the injuries He's been through the arc that his career has taken after a million dollar Salary last year. Yeah and being a late signing and just being a huge bargain for the Padres like deserves every bit of a multi-year deal lands in a great lineup. I think the situation is good.

There were situations for jerks in pro, foreign, free agency where the playing time would have been there but the supporting cast was questionable because I didn't have a good feel for the types of teams that were going to be interested, especially on a multi-year deal. The fact that it was Atlanta kind of gives me a little up arrow. I'd be surprised that Profar didn't kind of nudge his way up at least to the top of the group that we started yesterday and maybe even further. Maybe we see Jirks and Profar crack the middle part of the next tier over the course of the next few weeks. So the

main thing people are gonna look at is the power being at a career high level, the underlying numbers supporting it with a 7.2% barrel rate and a 44.2% hard hit rate. That's a huge jump. The barrel rate, it's like something we've seen before back in 2019. He had a 6.2%, a lot of like 4% and under over the course of his career. I feel like that hard hit jump is actually the bigger jump, the one that I'm more skeptical of. Do you think there was a tangible,

repeatable change underneath, increased bat speed, some kind of new training, anything we can point to that explains how ProFar hit the ball hard as often as he did and so much more than he had in the past last year. Yeah, I can't tell. You know, one thing that we do know is that MaxTV is a bit of a proxy for bat speed. So even though we don't have bat speed going back, we can see that he improved his maximum exit velocity by two miles an hour, almost two miles an hour in 2024 over 2023. I would be surprised if there wasn't some sort of bad speed training in there. Then on top of that, I just think when he was asked about it, most often

this past season, he tended to talk about approach at the plate and I could see something, you know, I've been talking about, you know, skills, you know, tools versus skills and how these you kind of acquire skills over the course of your career. I think maybe he just knew when to take his chances this year. You know, I bet you it's in the swing data in terms of what counts he was swinging in and hunting fastball. This was the best year of his career when it comes to the pitch type values on his fast on the fastball in particular. And even in 2019, when he was so good, he feasted on breaking balls, but more than fastballs.

This was the first year he was a real great fastball hitter. So I wonder if he just figured something out. He also hits sliders really well. So there's something there where, you know, he figured out how to hit fastballs and sliders and that's what the league is right now. So I tend to like look at that bad at ball data and say, uh, I'm not interested. He's not going to have that power. He's going to regress power wise, but he's on a leaderboard that I didn't quite give him credit for till just now. This is the second half, but no, no splits. This is the swinging strike rate for the last year among outfielders, the lowest swing striker. Of course, everyone knows who's first is Stephen Kwan.

Then it's Sal Freelick, Mookie Betts, Brendan Donovan, Lars Knutbar, Alex Verdugo, Tyler Freeman, TJ Friedl, Jurikson Profar, and Miguel Andujar. So eight out of the ten, I think, are regulars that are a boon to their teams. They don't have a great collective WRC+, because power is still pretty important. But you know, in this league, I think there's enough of a thirst for contact that that could keep them on the field if the power wanes. You know what I mean? Switch hitter in an outfield situation where there's not really anybody going to take his job. It's more likely that Kellnick loses his job once Acuna is

back. And switch hitter with contact is going to stay on the field enough to get to his 12, 15 homers at worst. So you can focus too much. It's a little bit like our conversation about how barrel rates can underwrite people who make a lot of contact, you know, maybe doesn't have the greatest barrel rate, but he's going to put a lot of lottery tickets into the field into the field by making all that contact. Yeah. And I think even if you want to take the projections and bring them down a little bit, being in a situation where Kellnick

won't disappear completely unless he's moved off the roster via trade, I don't think you can really bank on a maximum PT repeat from profile. I think that's the thing that I would be a little careful about. Some of the projections are dinging him already. So maybe it's like 15 to 18 homers, but non-zero speed, a good OBP, an average that won't hurt you, you know enough box ticked at this point in your draft, you're doing fine if this is where you're taking jerks and pro-far. Pretty nice balance of categorical contributions that he brings. Jung-ho Lee is also right here in this group and I think

in some ways that's the type of player, type of hitter at least, that I kind of expect Jung-ho Lee to be. Lower strikeout rate in the brief time that we saw him with the Giants before injury ended his season after just 37 games, but an 8.2% strikeout rate. Popped a couple of homers, stole a couple of bases. Maybe it's another sort of Stephen Kwan sort of profile, right? Lower strikeout rate, maybe a little less raw power than what we were just talking about from Purofar.

But I do think the way the Giants roster is built, held permitting, Lee is supposed to be a max volume player in that lineup. Yeah, I think you don't wanna get boxed in and have to jump Stephen Kwan a bunch if you have a low batting average because I think you can probably get the same type of batting average from Jung-Hoo Lee later. So if you are kind of like, I need to take an Arias, Kwan, Jung-Hoo Lee type, you can kind of put the three on the board and

take Lee later, I think, and still get what you need a lot of guys in this group So we're gonna try and move through them a little faster than we did yesterday Jake McCarthy playing time Distributions in the Arizona outfield are a little tricky to me. I think McCarthy got a lot more attention coming off of the 23 steel season in 2022 did that like kind of more in the second half, hit 283, popped eight homers, then took a step back in 2023. Kind of looked more like the same guy he was two years ago though in 2024. The player that I worry about is Alec Thomas, like being kind of a similarly skilled guy

that could just outright battle for those those played appearances. So do you have confidence that McCarthy has an upper hand and will actually at least play on the big side of Platoon or do you see this as kind of a risky profile if only because of the depth chart around him? Thomas is projected to be an asset defensively and below average offensively while Jake McCarthy is projected for the opposite basically.

I don't know, I think that they would rather have Alec Thomas in center is my guess. And that means that Jake McCarthy's more of a fourth outfielder, but he's behind a Lewis Gouriot that we talked about, is gonna be taken out of the games for defensive purposes and rested against some tough varieties. He's behind Alec Thomas that, you know,

batting wise you may want to put McCarthy in some days just to have an extra bat in the lineup. And, you know, there's also some room at DH, I believe, unless Pavin Smith is gonna play there a lot. What do you think is happening at DH, I believe, unless Pavin Smith is gonna play there a lot. What do you think is happening at DH? Because that means a lot. There's a slight boost to both McCarthy and Thomas for now. But being that, I think we have limited confidence

in Pavin Smith. Maybe if they like Smith, Smith plays a lot of first base, Naylor's the DH, that's possible. But it does seem like three players really competing for two spots and as long as they don't bring in someone who mostly DHs or can only DH, I think it can work. I'm just not certain that they're done. That's the tricky part at this time with McCarthy but if we you know move the calendar up two months and we're a week away from opening day

and the roster still looks like this, I might feel a lot better about taking Jake McCarthy in this range. Because I think the skills are real. I think it's a speed first profile, but if you're trying to make up ground and bags, I think there's enough here to actually use him for that purpose.

Yeah, I'm a little bit worried about the quantity more than the quality. I think the problem is that they're all lefties. Right, yeah. The big side platoon, they could share pretty easily with someone else on the roster. And then we talked about that with some of the guys in the previous tier, the big side platoon guys. This is that kind of player, even though he's available a little bit later.

And I think there's a little less track record to fall back on for a player like McCarthy and for Thomas too. I mean, I think McCarthy ahead of Thomas makes sense as far as what they've done so far as big league hitter. I don't think he has that wrong. I think if I'm looking for speed in this area, I might take Friedl over him.

How do you feel about that? I would take TJ Friedl over Jake McCarthy today because I think the way the Reds are built TJ Friedle's role comes in with a greater number of played appearances. I think you just get more playing time. And I do think TJ Friedle being in Cincinnati gets a nice park boost in the power category that if he played somewhere else, almost anywhere else, I don't know if I would trust double digit homers from TJ Friedle, but I'm at the point now where he's making that park

work for him. I've seen enough of it to kind of believe in the low double digits pop that TJ Friedle brings to the table as well. So yeah, I think Friedle's a little undervalued relative to McCarthy given some of these concerns. Maybe the best player of this group, at least from just a raw power perspective

is Jorge Soler. I mean Jorge Soler I like that they made the decision to get him quickly in Los Angeles and they have the flexibility to just let him DH not play him in the outfield. They can live their lives with Taylor Ward, Mike Trout, Joe Adele across the outfield and Jorge Soler just being the everyday DH there's always a, Mike Trout, Joe Adele, across the outfield and Jorge Soler just being the everyday DH, there's always a possibility of Trout missing a little time, we talked about that a little earlier, Mickey Moniac's gonna play

maybe as more of like a fourth outfielder type, but Jorge Soler could get 600 plate appearances and when Jorge Soler gets 600 plate appearances, you're usually gonna get high 20s home run power with the shot at a lot more. I mean, I think we just saw with the Marlins in 2023, 36 homers and 580 plate appearances. I think he still has that kind of raw power.

Barrel rate at 12.3% last year was down just slightly from what he did in that 2023 season with the Marlins, but projections point to mid 20s power at the low end and oops, he's got them up at 31 homers. I have really no disagreement with that. I do think it comes with the batting average risk you'd expect for a guy that can run strikeout rates closer to 30 percent but I like that each of the last two seasons Jorge Saler has kept the K rate under 25 percent. I think he's a little bit undervalued right here.

Yeah he could be. I think the only real thing that I have on him asterisk wise is I think he's probably like a C health grade. He seemingly, he has seasons where he loses half the season to an injury, at least. Even last year, he was hampered and he was out of the lineup a little bit and also hampered by injuries. So I think that's probably the source of the...

It's in the projections because he's only projected 540 to 580 plate appearances, Soler is. So I'm guessing that's mostly... That's not necessarily depth chart stuff. It's mostly health stuff. So it's baked in. If you use the projections, you'll pay the right price But that's the only asterisk I have is he seems to and it's like soft tissue stuff He has like hamstring issues and stuff like that

Right, and I think the nature of the injuries makes it more of the C grade than the amount of time missed if we're looking At just the last three seasons. So that's where that slightly harsh grade should come from. If you're looking at power and you're looking in this range do you think Alec Berlison gets enough playing time to be a comparable alternative to Saler right? If you're looking at one you're probably looking at the other and they're right next to each other in ADP right now. I actually like the fact that Saler is a righty because I think Berlison is good and you know kind of underrated for his combination of strikeout rate and pop you know some similarities to

profile actually even though they're not the same player yeah they standing side by side you know don't look like they would do the exact same things but I would pick us I think I'd take Saler over Burleson, at least in weekly leagues, because Burleson's just not gonna, he's gonna get the full big side platoon playing time. If you're in a daily league, I could see picking Burleson over Saler for sure.

Daily lineups. I just think my lingering questions about the Cardinals trying to make sure that they give every reasonable opportunity to a player like Nolan Gorman also kind of works into the equation of how Berlison could lose playing time. Gorman's also a lefty. I mean he just doesn't have a glove, you know.

You're right. Berlison's a true, true D.H. So if they have to begin the season with Nolan Aronato still on the roster, they don't have third base as a place to put somebody, it just creates that extra bit of playing time pressure. I think the underlying skills for Burleson are solid. Nice to see a really low K rate from him that's held up in the big leagues so far.

He's up to almost a thousand career played appearances, with a 13.1% K rate to this point. So a solid player, but not necessarily a musthave or somebody that I really really like just because they have a few other options that I guess I might prefer him to profile in daily leagues because You get profile and then you get the other days to put somebody else in I guess Like I think on a per plate appearance level he he might be better, but Profar will get more quantity. Yeah, I guess that's possible.

I think in a daily league there, I still think I trust Profar to end up getting to a higher total and just being more reliable. It depends on the depth of my roster, I guess. If I got a lot of bench spots, maybe then I'd be flipping to Berluson in a shallow bench situation. He's not necessarily good enough with his time to justify the extra roster spot to mix and match, if that makes any sense at all.

George Springer goes in this group, is this good oatmeal or is this very dried up oatmeal that sat out on the counter too long and is not going to be fun to eat? Listen, I'm feeling old enough already today, geez. You don't have to call me dried up oatmeal crusted to the side of the bowl. I was talking about Springer, not you. Oh yeah, I know, I know.

Well, I guess, yeah, if George Springer is dried out oatmeal at 35, then what? Again, looking at his maxi be a real reduction in his bad speed. You know, and I'm surprised his barrel rate didn't reflect it yet. And I think it's possible that he does not bounce back power wise the way predictions say he will. And if he does not bounce back power wise the way projections say he will. And if he does not bounce back power power wise, you could end up with another sort of 220, you know, 1510 season. I wondered about the average, the XBA last year was 244 when he hit 220. So that feels like it's coming back at least somewhat in the right direction. I don't I don't know if I'm on the 220 fear quite as much as you might be

He's still doing a good job tempering whiffs and despite his age I mean geez he was a really efficient base dealer 16 for 17 last year so chooses spots really well I don't think there's much pressure on his playing time So I'm kind of looking a little more towards like passable oatmeal for George Springer I think this what happens for one more year. What happens if they sign Pete Alonso? I mean we've got Santander Varsho out there. Pete Alonso would play DH I guess and that would lose I guess David Schneider upon mostly

outfield duty. Would you sit Springer for Schneider? No, they're both right-handed. No, zero worries. They can add Pete Alonso, and I don't think it has more than a very fringe effect on Springer's playing time. I think having another masher in the lineup

helps George Springer's counting stats more than the trickle-down loss in playing time hurts him. Yeah, I think that Springer's counting stats more than the trickle down loss in playing time hurts him. Yeah, that's you know, I think that Springer is also a good lesson in maybe if you add it all up, he won't be quote unquote worth his contract. But I think he's a decent kind of guide for the types of players to sign the long term contracts is that, you know, their five tool or at least they can contribute in so many different ways that as they get older, you never know which way is going to be the most valuable for them. And Springer last year was most valuable as a base runner if you're adding up the different things he did.

So the fact that he was a decent defender, he's held on to that, you know, and I think those things will keep him on the field even if he puts up a below average batting line again. That's where I think the passable, good enough oatmeal vibes come from for me with Springer. I think, and if they do add one more bat, I do like that line up quite a bit more

with Pete Alonso in it on a regular I was also noticing when I was like sort of looking through this tier that it's kind of a Rough place to be looking for speed because you have to either kind of Victor Robles or take that shot at Jake McCarthy's playing time or TJ Friedle who maybe probably because the due to injury didn't steal as much last year like you know Springer actually steps forward as maybe Somebody that you could at least get ten steals from to maybe 15 with non-zero power and probably full playing time

You know I mean like in a in a tier where the other stolen base options maybe have more questions Like in a tier where the other stolen base options maybe have more questions He's actually kind of a guy you might take to you know Get non-zero steals to kind of get a little bit extra in the steals category Just adding in the three guys that were part of the show yesterday that are also in this tier Cedric Mullins the Leader in stolen bases a year ago from this group 32 bags But are pretty firmly in the platoon. So yeah, 32 bags, but Karthi was 25 a second. So you've got issues. These outfielders all have issues.

There's nobody that I circle and I'm like, I love this guy in this tier. I think maybe Jung-Hoo Lee just because it's cheap batting average. And I think he'll play all the time. I think this is a group that the ADP, the draft market, has kind of got correct. I don't think there's a lot being overlooked from a skills perspective. I think Lee would make sense because we haven't seen a lot of him in the big leagues yet.

You know, Saler, I mentioned the power case for him. Brendan Donovan, some of the concerns I have about Alec Berlison also apply to Brendan Donovan. I know he can play all over and that'll probably help him keep that plate appearance total up, but I don't know, is there anything that Brendan Donovan does that is good enough, especially in like a mid-sized mixed league? Last year was a good season, he was 15% better than league average, he had 278 with a 342 OVP but it was 14 homers, 73 RBIs, 65 runs, 5 steals. Good season it's just like I don't know if there's anything more there and then there's the possibility of playing less for the same concerns we have about Burleson.

Yeah I mean in terms of the benchmarks you have for a 15 team league he doesn't reach any of them except for batting average. Yeah so that's sub optimal. I think of him, I think of him probably a lot the way that his team does. And Willie Castro appears in the same tier. I would not like to take them here because I would rather take them as my first bench guy. As a guy that in a head to head situation, I could put in for extra ABs into two different positions or three different positions. You know what I mean? You know, buying them here suggests that you think they are a starting outfielder, in which case I think you'd want to get closer to

those average bench those benchmarks across the board. So, you know, if they fall, you know, if you're in a 12 team, you know, situation, I think Donovan and Castro, that's their best use. It's like a 12 team head to head where they're like your utility or your bench guy and you're plugging them in for just extra stats on the days the other guys miss. Yeah, I think that's a good way to look at them. But I do try to find that profile later

because I think you can end up kind of picking out a glue guy that doesn't come with the extra price of having done it for a year or multiple years. I think in the case of Donovan, there's just that track record. I hate like this is this is a reliable always finds his playing time sort of player. But those guys, they shouldn't they shouldn't cost you a top 250 pick. That's the way I look at them, at least, in a lot of these leagues. Say hello to Tim's Selects, Tim's everyday value menu.

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Find these recipes and more at NYTCooking.com. Smells so good. A few other names in this tier, moving a little further down. Hey Sue Sanchez, Byron Buxton, and you mentioned TJ Friedl earlier. Sanchez, at least, because of the team he's playing on with the Marlins, max playing time of the group potential,

I mean, could just play every single day, because who are they going to play instead, right? Just cobbling together a passable lineup some days is gonna be a challenge, I think. The way the Marlins are built, the way they're going through their current tear down. I'd be interested to see that baseball reference chart because my instinct was that he was being,

tell me where to get this so I don't have to make you do this for this work. Okay, so this is important because baseball reference is great and it has so much stuff on it. I'm not very good at it. It's very easy to go to baseball reference, find something and forget how you found it,

and then just get kind of distracted by all the other stuff. Yeah. So you go to the team page for whatever team you want. So you can just Google 2024 Marlins baseball reference or click on that once you're in there, however you wanna get there. And then you go to the tab, it's the other tab,

the more Marlins page, more 2024 Marlins pages, and then the other section. Batting orders. Batting orders, that's the one. That's the, what did you call me yesterday? Fancy chart man. Fancy chart man. Fancy Chartman. This is how Fancy Chartman finds what he's looking for.

And if I toggle LHP, that tells me if he started or not? If you choose from the drop down of players, the player you wanna see, it'll highlight the games he started. I don't use the toggles because I like seeing the whole season and being able to scroll down. And you'll see he definitely sits against some lefties. He wasn't sitting against all lefties last year.

It seemed like it got, it kind of started as more of a strict platoon where he didn't start against the lefty until probably, wow, mid-June. And then once that happened, they played against the lefties. Oh, it looks like he was an everyday guy by the end of the season. Closer to an everyday guy, right?

And some of that's just- They just dropped him in the batting order against the lefties, I think. Right, and if you're in their position, like, why not see if he can just get better with the opportunities? Yeah, we've talked about the rule of five, and they don't have five.

Nope, they do not have five. I think their everyday players are Xavier Edwards and Jesus Sanchez. Leaves the door open for a few others to emerge and possibly be some late late values at this position and a few others. For what it's worth, Sanchez swings the bat hard and if he ever, you know, lifted the ball better could have a mini power breakout. I'm not calling for it anymore at 27, you know, with 1500 plate appearances under his belt.

But there is always the opportunity for what I'm hearing out of, you know, sort of player development camps is that the Marlins have changed their their hitting process. And I'm doing a story about the modern hitting, like developing the modern hitting prospect. I did ask someone, like, who's at the top of developing any right now? And they were, they said that, and this may surprise some people, but this is what people thought that the Yankees were pretty good at developing bat speed power and swing decisions and that the Red Sox were good and That the Marlins were Poaching a lot that the Orioles were good and that the Marlins were were poaching a lot of people from those organizations

so Maybe he gets some better hitting coaching in the next year or two and breaks out that way. But I also just like him because he does hit those benchmarks. He's gonna hit 260 with 20 plus homers and 10 plus steals. Like he at least is an average fantasy player in 15 team leagues. And I think the quantity is being underrepresented in his projections right now. 539 for Jesus Sanchez in terms of plate appearances. So I actually have him circled as maybe one of my favorites in this tier. I have two more at the beginning

of the next year. But if you made me choose, you know, two or three guys from this tier would be probably Cedric Mullins, Jung-Hoo Lee and Jesus Sanchez Yeah, I think I'd be something like Jorge Saler Hey, Sue Sanchez And then maybe one of depending on my build profile early just to have a balanced player in there Those are my favorites, but I think I would have I'll have most of this group I'll have more Saler and more Jesus Sanchez than anybody. Interesting too, running him through the auction calculator with the oopsie projections, even

with a lower projected plate appearance total, Jesus Sanchez comes out as the 33rd best outfielder. It's like $12 and it's a little above Pete Crow Armstrong. He's going as the 61st, yeah. Ahead of Elliott Ramos and Taylor Ward and Jake McCarthy I do think there's a really solid player here whose role on this rebuilding team looks pretty safe I don't know if I love him for Keeper and Dynasty purposes, but hey, we're just looking at 2025 only here It looks like an okay value That's what I would how I tempered a little bit because he's 27 and I'm not I'm not calling for a ton more ceiling

I mean, I know that he's prominent in our word cloud so we should probably move on. The curious case of Byron Buxton rolls on you know last year cut the K-rate to 25.5% right that was his lowest since 2021. Got to 388 plate appearances his highest total since 2017 that is the sad sad part. Second highest total of his career. Yeah chipped in seven bags popped 18 homers ran a double-digit barrel rate for the fifth. I guess if you have a healthy IL in your league like he's actually probably an underrated player because he gave you 280 with 18 homers and seven stolen bases in half a season. So right you got something something else, you know, from the other half of the season. If you had an IEL,

I think it's another iteration of the Mike Trout question from part two of the outfield series with even more extreme health downside. I think Byron Buxton still a good hitter, a very good hitter. I think he just showed that to us again last year. I think he just showed that to us again last year. One thing that's difficult with Trout and Buxton I'm just thinking of is, you know, like I have an offer in my fancy basketball league where they want to give me Joel Embiid for Michael Porter and Jordan Poole, who like they're lesser players, you know, we have a pretty much unlimited IL. I could do that. But the problem is when you have players like this in a head-to-head

environment you just don't know what you're going to have when it counts. You know what I mean? So there's a little bit of that like in a redraft Roto situation I could see using Buxton just using up those stats and then having somebody else fill in the gaps. But in a head to head league, you know, you could start to depend on, you know, getting those stats from Buxton and then, oh, look, it's the playoffs and he's hurt. Maybe you can have one Buxton, but you, you know, putting Buxton and Trout on the same build, I think would be pushing it. Right. Hopefully that's a relatively obvious, like like don't take on too much risk, especially the same position too. You want two risky hitters by injury, one in the outfield, one somewhere else is probably

the way to go, just based on what you're going to do with your bench and having some balance. But I do think this is not a level of injury to risk you should feel compelled to subject yourself to. If you just don't want to deal with it. I understand. It's fine. I don't think it's going to burn you. I don't think the difference between winning your league and not winning your league is going to be choosing or not choosing bucks than at this price. If that is like a way to calm the nerves here, like it just looks like pretty good value if you haven't taken on much risk yet and want the possibility of 25 to 30 homers.

If you do get the hundred and twenty the 120 game 500 plus played appearance season, I don't think it's impossible, even though it's pretty unlikely. I do have a correction on T.J. Friedle real quick. I was surprised to see this. So for his career, T.J. Friedle actually has only four more home runs at home that he does on the road. It's like a 22 out of 40 that he's hit in his career have come at Great American Ballpark.

That's because last season of the 13 he hit, nine were on the road. Very odd. Better power splits on the road for one year. I don't know how sticky that is, especially when we're talking about a year that Friedl missed a lot of time due to injury. Ended up being 341 plate appearances.

And I think the risk here is that the injury slows him and he doesn't actually steal the bags you need and that the power doesn't look like it's really supported by bad ball stats. You could end up with like a 250-1212 season. It's in the range of outcomes though I I do think 250, 12, and 20 bags is actually the place I'm expecting him to land. Puts a ton of balls in play. I do think the 556 plate appearances we saw in 2023 are probably a good indicator of where he's likely to go

with the current shape of that roster and how he fits into that outfield mix in Cincinnati. So fine at the price for sure. And I think as we said earlier, it makes a little more sense than Jake McCarthy at this moment, but that they're pretty similar players in terms of what you're expecting them to offer you over the course of the season.

One reason that I don't love this tier other than maybe, you know, taking, I like your argument for Saler and you know, I could take Sanchez, Saler, Lee. I could take those guys if they fall a little bit. Right now they're going in the low 200s. But you know, if it got to like pick 240 and those guys are on the board 250, then I would feel good about taking them.

I don't really see a lot that I need to jump here. But then one of the reasons I don't love this tier so much is that I love the beginning of the next tier and I don't know. Tiers are hard to do and we just you know we picked an arbitrary place I guess but you know I'd rather you know actually jump some of the guys in the next tier you know other than maybe Sanchez and Saler, because I really like Nolan Jones. I really like Lars Nupar. In daily leagues, I really like Evan Carter and Matt Wallner. Matt Wallner hits the snot out of the ball, you know. Evan Carter is a really good all-around player and Lars Nupar has a lot of things. So those four

in particular are guys that I have been getting shares of and that I like and that will would cause me to definitely miss out on the Burleson, you know, Willie Castro, Brendan Donovan, even Lord Skuriel groupings that go 50 picks earlier. Yeah, you mentioned Walner of all the players that are in tier seven, tier eight in the outfield, these last couple of episodes, these last couple of tiers that is 17.5% barrel rate, easily the highest of the group, right? Elite batspeed. Elliott Rommel is the second, completely tracks with the player that Matt Walner is supposed to be.

It's another like platoon masher type, right? I mean if you like Kerry Carpenter, I think you would also like Matt Walner. Is that a fair statement? Yeah. I honestly think he'll be so good that, you know, and for the cheap and for cheap enough that, you know, even the fact that he is probably a strict platoon, he'll probably produce value. Like I see a lot of similarities to Brent Rooker in terms of stats. You know, this is this is their Brent Rooker that they kept, you know, this is their red record that they kept, you know. Yeah, and some exposure to lefties from, you know, early July on, but did predominantly when he sat against lefties. I don't know if he even had a day off until the end of the year, and he may have been banged up by then.

I don't think Matt Wallner ever really sits against righties, so just keep that in mind as far as how his playing time looks. It's mostly a platoon with a little bit of exposure but good good cheap power Lars Newpar I mean man talk about a top five Ward cloud player discussed on rates everything I mean he like all the process stuff is so beautiful 6% swinging strike rate 113.5 max TV 10% bell rate has a tiny taste rate, has speed. You know, it's like, if only he could just lift the ball a little bit and stay healthy. That like, he could still have a breakout season.

And I feel crazy because he's 27 now and has, it's been four years and he has, you know, nearly 1400 plate appearances. I still love him I guess still I can't quit you I get it for all the reasons you pointed out right we love the way he doesn't strike out a lot he draws walks he shows speed and the three-year snapshot of playing time I think Byron Buxton is kind of a good measuring stick for how injury prone other guys in this range are Byron Buxton has collected 1117 plate appearances since the start of 2022

Various injuries keeping him down 279 games Lars Newt Barr is at 1255 It's not much better. It's not much better. So whatever grade you give Buxton for health at this point in his career, DF, whatever, Newt Bars is like, what, a half grade, maybe one full grade above it? That's why he goes here. But I get it, I understand why you're still interested. I'm still interested too.

I think I share your general feelings about this entire group though. I mean, Nolan Jones, easily inside the top 100 by ADP last draft season, really just wasn't healthy at all last year and should get a chance to be an everyday guy in Colorado. You go back to 2023, he was on a 30 homer, 30 steal pace on a per game basis, even though it was just 424 played appearances over 106 games because he was in triple A to start the year.

Rockies. I think it's just a bet on the stuff that bothered him physically last year, not being a problem anymore. And again, that comes back to how much injury risk do you have already? But I just feel like it was such a lost year for Nolan Jones. If you believed last year and were even considering the top 180P, you should be all in on a possible bounce back with some health this year. Yeah, I think he's not aggressive enough in the top 100 ADP, you should be all in on a possible bounce back with some help this year. Yeah, I think he's not aggressive enough in the zone.

And I that seems like something you could coach or something that might you might, you know, come upon yourself because with a swing strike rate like he had last year, 9.4%, a 30.6% strikeout rate for Nolan Jones is very outsized. Now yes, he's had this kind of strikeout rates in the minors and is probably near his true talent, but if he was a little bit more aggressive and had more like a 10% walk rate, could he get down to 28% Ks, 26% Ks? And if he did that, there's still a chance for a real breakout season because he had a 29.7% strikeout rate when he hit 297, thanks to Coors and 20 homers in 424 plate appearances

in 2023. So Nolan Jones, like, you know, there's what he's projected to do, which is, you know, hit 250 with 15 homers and 10 steals, which I think is light in the playing time category. And then there's even a case to be made that there could be another level for him where he really unlocks a little bit more contact and makes the most out of his excellent bat speed and barrel rates. I think the categorical offerings of Nolan Jones may end up being kind of similar to the next guy in the

group. It's Garrett Mitchell. Mitchell has been slowed by injuries throughout his big league career and has shown power, has shown speed in parts of three seasons with the Brewers now. 365 plate appearances, 13 homers, 20 steals. It's 20 for 25 as a base stealer, so efficient. The 264-343, 463 line. That's a player we should be excited about.

Now, what's the downside? Well, it's been a 34.2% strikeout rate. So he walks, but he strikes out a lot. And also, is he limited playing time potentially? Like, were they in a strict platoon again? Well, this is the other complicating factor, I think. Because he was like in and out due to injury? Right, he's been in and out so much due to injury

that that's one part of it. They've got so many outfielders that they really don't have to play them against lefties if they don't want to. And a lot of teams, I think Garrett Mitchell's defense would carry playing time against lefties. I think with the Brewers, they don't, they really just don't have to force it. Looking at the end of last year again, because I think that's the better time.

He also, by the way, does not have that good swing strike rate. So he's a little bit more of a, I think, true talent, you know, 30 plus guy. Right. And I don't know if the quality of contact is going to be as, as nice as Jones. As no, yeah, it's like as off the charts. It's not bad. It's not bad. It's probably a 10% barrel rate for true talent based on what we've seen right now, if we had to approximate it.

There's a few things that are confusing though. I mean, at the end of last year, Garrett Mitchell was hitting between second and fourth on a regular basis for the Brewers. So lineup position was really good, but other than a final regular season series starred against the lefty on the 28th of September, he played one start on August 12th, one on the

7th, one on the 4th. He plays a little bit against lefties, but he generally sits against them. That's just the way they've handled it because of the way that roster is built. It's not impossible for him to get those chances, but I don't think it's the most likely or the first thing that's gonna happen. They're in a tier where you'd have to choose between them. So I would choose Jones. I would choose Jones over Mitchell.

I think that the ceiling on playing time, yeah, exactly, yeah. If things change with the depth chart for the Brewers, then maybe I could reevaluate that, but that's been my lean too, even though I think Garrett Mitchell does some pretty interesting things. Maybe you could keep him in your back pocket as a fallback.

You're waiting for Jones. Someone else also liked Jones. Now you want something similar. It comes with a bit more playing time risk. I think that's the way I'd look at it. JJ Ladea. We need that, for Evan Carter, we need that 23 tasty drop.

Yeah. He's 23 this year. He's got speed. In August too. It's not gonna be until late August. Yeah, he's got speed. He's got an excellent eye at the plate. I do think he's probably gonna be platooned. It's a lot like Mitchell actually though.

To this point in his young career, injuries have slowed him down and we've seen a lot of swing and miss. Probably not as good batted ball quality from Carter. Right, but kind of similar in terms of the risks and maybe a little similar in terms of the categorical balance that you're going to get from them too. I mean Evan Carter's projections for plate appearances I think are all under 500 with the sets over at Fangraphs right now. I think there's a pretty good chance Carter can get above that, even if he's losing some time against lefties.

I would buy him in dynasty leagues. I think he's a buy. You're coming off a bad season. It's unclear what the role of injury is. And you're're gonna be dealing with people who are looking at fan graphs and seeing mediocre Max EVs, poor barrel rate last year and they may think you know maybe he doesn't really have power and I think it with his age what you can maybe bake in is just some filling out. We've said with like Churio you know you can actually hit the ball harder. Like your maxi B isn't like set in stone for the rest of your life. So like he could grow and you know, add some power over time. And I just love the approach so much. And I do think the legs will be there. So, you know, at worst, he's a guy who maybe hits, you know, 15 homers every year and steals,

you know, 20, 25 bags. But if he added that power component, he could easily become sort of a 2020 guy, you know, maybe fam-esque in terms of really high OVP mid-link batting average. You know, I think if that sounds interesting to you, you should buy him in a dynasty if you can. Yeah, I thought it was interesting at the beginning of 2024, Carter was hitting third when he played against righties most of the time. Occasionally dropped down. Yeah, they like him.

Cleaned up and fit. Went in the middle of the order, yeah. And when they were playing him against lefties, if you sat against some lefties, when he played against lefties, it'd be just bottom third of the order. So there's a chance that he can break through and just be an everyday guy or get the occasional day off against lefties when he played against lefties, it'd be just bottom third of the order. So there's a chance that he can break through and just be an everyday guy

or get the occasional day off against lefties. If they build in a dozen days off for Evan Carter and they're all against lefties, that's probably as close to an everyday role as you actually need for anybody going this late in a draft. And then he'd be under projected at 460, 490 plate appearances. Yeah, to me, based on the way that roster's built,

it's a little bit more like the Nolan Jones playing time outlook than the Mitchell one. At least as the way things sit right now. So Carter looks like a really nice value. I don't know if I agree on that. I think it's a little bit more like the Mitchell situation, because they have Leote Tavares. Yeah, they've played that song enough times but he's

just like an elite defender so like you can just be like we go defense against lefties and we put taveras in you know I think Carter because of the potential to be elite in OVP especially I think he might be important enough with the bat where they'll find a way to keep him in the lineup. And Tavares, so who else could Tavares get in the, what's the trickle down basically? What's the decision the Rangers have to make if they wanna play Evan Carter against lefties? Jock Peterson being there is a DH,

okay, Jock Peterson's not gonna start against lefties. Oh, they could DH Carter against lefties, or they could DH Garcia against lefties That's what they do right and put Carter in the corner And then yeah use leo de in center and I think there's a power saying that it sounds that sounds actually kind of likely because jock Is a is a strict platoon and then I think in the case of carrot Mitchell It's like well Blake Perkins is a phenomenal defender. Right, yeah. So it depends on these factors that are impossible to call right now.

You convinced me that the playing time situation for Carter's a little bit better. And I just love the skill set. This is the kind of player that speaks to me. This is the kind of player that I wanna take a shot on. It's very different than Nolan Jones, but the two of them do things that I want to bet on. My own, Don Jones hits the crap out of the ball.

I will bet on that. You know, Evan Carter has an elite plate approach. I will bet on that. Yeah, Garrett Mitchell is a burner on a team that loves to run and he has some pop to go with it. So there's the reason to still bet on that. But what I was going to say with the fallout there's the reason to still bet on that. But what I was gonna say with the fallout on the Brewers depth chart is,

I don't know if you can look at what they have at the end of January and say, yep, that's their opening day roster. Because if there's a mystery team that could loop in on Bregman, maybe they're the mystery team. Or if they're a team that makes a trade because of some other crowded depth chart somewhere else.

Things could look different in a way where the idea of Sal Felick playing third base again, which was a thing at the beginning of last season and could be a thing again this time, that could change, right? So if things stand as the way they are, I think I like Mitchell's playing timeout look more than if they add one more kind of must play guy

that keeps the puzzle pieces shifted differently. It's just out of his control in the short term. It's a little bit like our rule of five, you know, it's like he's probably, you know, the fourth or fifth best hitter. So if they add a hitter ahead of him he could roll he could drop out of that rule of five situation, you know. Right, I think he can be good enough to get into that group but it could get crowded enough where he's not. That's, he's right on that line. Joe Adele is fun. I see him getting some hype, I think, in our Discord, actually,

just because the power was there last year, speed was there, It's 25. improvements to the K-rate, still really young, even though we've been talking about him forever. It was only a 280 OBP last year, so the real life value of what he was doing came out to a 90 WRC plus. Projections really like the quality of contact, and that's where you see that bump from Oopsie.

Oopsie by far the most aggressive, 238.303.476. If you're buying that projection, you're buying 30 more points in batting average than we've seen from Adele last year. You're buying a 20 plus point jump in OVP and about a 70 point jump in slug. Are you as excited about Joe Adele as the oopsie projection set is? Maybe not on a rate level, but I think that they might all be low on playing time. I think that they have to play him. And there's a thing that's been happening across baseball.

That's kind of interesting. That's relevant for Joe Adele, which is that slugging percentage is more tied to team wins now than OVP. You know, during Moneyball, there was like, you know, this whole, oh, my gosh, OVP is really tied to, you know, during moneyball, there was like, you know, this whole, oh my gosh, OVP is really tied to team performance. And, you know, they ostensibly, you know, acquired a bunch of players that were good in OVP. Now, now the league is figuring out that slugging is more tied to wins. And I think on this team, he's one of the premier sluggers on the Angels.

He has to play, you know, and despite the fact that they'll have you know around a 300 on base percentage that's not what he's in the lineup for he's in the lineup to hit a homer and so if you give him 600 plate appearances and you scale the less excited projections you still get a pretty exciting player. You get a 30 homer, 20 steel guy. So this is one of the reasons you either keep your batting average high or you punt batting average.

Joe Adele is available to you if you punt batting average. And I think increasingly that batting average is a nice one to punt. In this tier, you'll see if you're punting batting average is a nice one to punt. In this tier you'll see if you're punting batting average, Buxton, Nolan Jones, Garrett Mitchell, you know, Matt Wallner, see all these players open up to you if you punt batting average. All these players are more attractive to you than to other teams. Or even if you're just willing to accept a little bit of a risk, you don't have to give it up completely, but you could say you know what my target's going to be lower,

I'm going to I'm okay if I get five standings points in batting average. Maybe you're not gonna finish dead last, you take on a little bit of dead weight in that category, get a little lucky with a couple of guys, that can always happen too. I think that's part of the appeal of punting average is that if you're punting average with guys that make a lot of hard contact,

they can have that here. Sometimes they run high babbips, yeah. Yeah, they just run a babbip that's hot enough where they come out 30 or 40 points higher than batting average than they should and you end up being just fine and you got all the power boosts from everything clicking. That's the outcome that you're sort of hoping for,

but you just have to plan for that to not happen because if you don't, then you are actually punting average. Everything else has to be airtight if you're gonna go that route. By projections, for WRC+, Mike Trout, not surprisingly, a 152, the best projection for the Angels. Solera at 124, Joadel at 116, this according to Oopsie. So the third best hitter by WRC+,

if you're into that projection set for what he's supposed to do. If that's the case, yeah, you're right. Then the playing time is light. I think rule of five would be a good t-shirt. Rule of five. I like this. It's a good rule. He's in the rule of five. So many of these things are just math and science, the generic math and science terms. It does really fit into the core. Our vibe. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Just crushes the vibe.

We do basic math. We are science. We are math too, sometimes. Yeah, right. JJ Bleday gets a note here too. He cut the K-rate for the second straight season, continues to walk, makes enough hard contact to be dangerous, and played a ton.

Yeah, I wanted to not like him. I wanted to not like him because I don't think he's a center fielder. But you always believed. You believed he was making the adjustments at the plate, right? Like, you were pushing Bladet as a late-rate guy. And now that I'm looking at him, I'm like,

he did everything he wanted to do. And I don't think that they care that he's not a great centerfielder They need bats and they're gonna play him. So I got no complaints about the day I think you know, maybe he won't hit for a good batting average, which is a little bit weird But he's a he's kind of an extreme fly ball guy so he's not gonna have that great babbip and he can be prone to streaks at the plate because He is a scoopy guy. He's a, he's a, he's like a, it's really funny.

He's not Schwaber, but like he has that same sort of scoopy swing where he has trouble at the top of the zone. And he can go in and out. If they're hitting the top of the zone really well and he's not doing much with it, he can kind of go in a slump. And so he's a flawed player.

But on this team, with the advances he made and with the projection he has, he's going to play. I think he's a Max Malium guy. Fun fact for you, by the way, when you say Scoopy, there are many people who grew up in Wisconsin or in the upper Midwest, where Culver's footprint has grown over the years, who thought of Culver's immediately because Scoopy is the name of their mascot. It's the cone full of custard with a face.

He's great. Scoopy is the best. If we do a live show in Wisconsin, I really want Scoopy to make an appearance. I want Scoopy and Bernie Brewer. Alive at the Culver's. Hey, you know what? I'm gonna work on that. I'm gonna work on building up a friendship

with a franchisee of a local Culver's that likes the show enough to let us build a little studio in the corner and do a live show in a Culver's. That would be amazing. How Wisconsin can we make a live show? That's a challenge. Charlie Barron comes out and opens.

Pat McCurdy in there. Everybody listened to the show, not from Wisconsin. It's like, what are you talking about, man? You're just making up names. You've lost it. Get a little fish fry going. Yeah. Yeah, I got a good plan for that one.

Michael Conforto goes in this group. Playing time capped just because of the team he's on, but quality of plate appearances and supporting cast, maybe so good where he ends up being a good value this late. I mean, his bad ball stats were the best of his career basically last year. And what did we notice about his splits? He had like 13 of 20 homers on the road or 17. He had 17 of his homers on the road, I think.

Yeah, he only hit three in San Francisco in 58 games, but he had 17 in 72 games away from Oracle. Yeah, so, you know, he could be a guy who hits you 25 homers in 500 plate appearances. Little mini Jock Peterson. It hits you 25 homers in five in 500 plate appearances little mini jock Peterson a mini jock Peterson world projections spit him out as about a Top 75 outfielder that's again using oopsie 504 plate appearances kind of feels about right given who he is and the team is not great for weekly leagues

I don't think. Yeah, a little more fun. It's kind of a guy that if you have in a weekly leagues, you're gonna be sitting some weeks. So the good news is he's a fifth outfielder by ADP. So you could have him as your fifth outfielder as long as you're, when you have a good bench outfielder and you decide like, this year I'm going to be spending time where Con you know,

Conforto sits Friday through Saturday, Friday through Sunday, you know, for some other guy when he faces lefties. And you could coax a little more value out of Conforto that way. The other guy that's in this group that I think has a similar limitation on playing time goes right next to Conforto, it's William Reu.

The way the Red Sox are going to divvy up playing time with the impending arrivals of Christian Campbell and Roman Anthony is going to cause problems for probably two guys on the depth chart because when I see Christian Campbell I see a guy that's going to play every day. I see a righty who can play enough spots well who should be an impact bat. He should get a large share of playing time, right? So that's my expectations for him, and Roman Anthony should be a special player in the outfield too.

So you fold two more guys under this depth chart, easy to kind of cross off David Hamilton as a starter and say, hey, he's a backup, fine, that's easy to do. But then who loses if both Anthony and Campbell are up early and taking everyday roles? To me, it's either Sadan Raffaella or Wilier Abreu, or kind of just they both lose something

because they have to share. They become a platoon instead of having a chance at the play every day. This is a crowded roster. There's risk on every non-elite Boston player. And I honestly think it's a little bit early for Roman Anthony. You know, he's 20 years old.

You know, I know he just had a 162 WRC plus in AAA though, so at some point he'll just knock the door right over. But I don't think he'll start the season as the center fielder, especially since they have Rafael under contract for a while and you know, they have a pretty good situation. If they do during a Braille, you as you as she to Rafaela to start the season, you'd feel pretty good about that.

I do think that Christian Campbell has a better chance of breaking the team, breaking it, going north of the team. He's 22. He has a little bit less time at the high minors, but he also was great, and just because of the position. He's fighting Hamilton and Grissom. He's got an easier road to playing time. This all is about William Brae, somehow, I know. But I think that with what he he's done and what he's in

terms of what he's projected to do he should be an everyday player because he's projected at least by oopsie to be 15% better than the average and a normal platoon split would have you at least a round league average against lefties you know what I'm saying like you would project him to be a round league average against lefties if he was 15% better overall. And he's a decent defender, so for me, he plays every day. For the Red Sox, maybe not.

If my eyes are not deceiving me, and they certainly could be at this point in the week, using my fancy chart, I see after June 22nd, there was a stint where Abreu was not playing, he was on the IL, after June 22nd, Willier Abreu made one start against a left-handed pitcher. So it was a pretty firm platoons arrangement for him last year. So the risk is pretty evident from that.

Projections are all good, at least 8% better than league average. Little more swing and miss than I would like to see for a guy that has to hold onto the job, but hits the ball hard enough, I think, where you could say, yeah, we'll take that. I mean, he's a different type of player than I expected him to be.

I think when he first got on my radar as a lower A Astros prospect, it was less swing and miss, maybe a little less power, maybe some speed, even though he wasn't efficient as a base stealer. I thought he'd lean more that way, and I think maybe just getting stronger and maturing is to just flip that profile.

Yeah, he's got a decent amount of lefties in his division, right? I mean, you got Rodone and Freed on the Yankees. Who do you have on, is there a lefty on the Blue Jays? No lefty? That rotation should be all righties. Yep, that's all righties. Even the next guy up in Bloss is a righty.

And the Rays. McClanahan. McClanahan. And then everybody else, unless they get down to like Ian Seymour and Joe Rock types, then they're all righties. So, three good righties in the division? Orioles. Or three good lefties?

Mostly righties unless Povich or Rogers are in the rotation. I wonder how that rates against other divisions. I do think it crossed my mind when we were talking about some of the guys on part two, just looking at how infrequently Jordan Alvarez sees a lefty, that's not necessarily scheduled. That's exactly what I was thinking about,

why it was like, I don't even know. But he's surrounded by righties. And I think the context of your lineup is the other factor that I don't think enough about with how teams match up bullpen arms now, right? Ever since the rules changed a few years ago with three batter minimum, there's a world before they made that change where Jordan Alvarez always gets the loogie. Yeah.

Because of that rule, now he doesn't see that many lefties and he handles them fine anyway. Right, right. Anyway, I think digging into this on a really micro level might actually have some value when we're trying to parse out which platoons are gonna be more costly than others. I also think the case that I just made for making Michael Conforto your fifth outfielder and massaging him with a bench outfielder,

I think that is a decent strategy because what you're seeing here is the reason so many of these guys dropped to where they dropped is because of platoon risk. I mean, we're talking about it on every other player. So you can get good work out of Willier Breyhugh for really cheap and you just sit him some segments. Sometimes you sit him early in the week, sometimes you sit him late in the the week like when he hits the Yankees and he gets two lefties and Then you you know, he's in the Orioles are in town

He gets no lefties and you're fine and you'd love playing him You know what I mean? so if you just take two guys out of this like if you You start to do a little bit of the the player mashing machine Like if you had a will your Abreu and Matt Walner as your five and six basically of your outfield, I think you'd probably like find a way to not really face lefties all year. You might get lucky enough where the schedules

are always favorable for one of them. You can kind of toggle them in and out and you end up being more productive than expected from that last outfield spot. That's how I feel. And I think I would rather do that in most leagues than take a shot at Roman Anthony that I think is not necessarily gonna work out.

I don't think he's gonna break camp with the team. The shallower your team is, the more the Roman Anthony one makes sense. Because then you just take that shot, it doesn't work out, you drop him, and there's something interesting on your wire. I think your reservations about Anthony to begin the season are fair, but I also think this is such a low price, nearing pick 300.

You can take your shot here, see what happens in the first few weeks. If you're drafting early and it's even before spring training starts, totally fair price because we've seen prospects like this. He could kill it all spring and Saddam looks like a, you know, not great at the plate and they're just like, hey, it's time to make this decision. Or Trevor's story gets hurt and the trickle down of how they move guys around, you know, maybe they have to play Raphael at short again in that scenario and then they have a spot, you know, there's stuff that can happen that nudges him onto the roster sooner than expected

and then even the weight. The weight might not be that long. Roman Anthony was really good every minor league stop as he's moved through that red-stocked system, so I think it's a fair prize. He's a guy that has an elite plate approach, Anthony does, hits the snot out of the ball, and makes good contact, but he has risked a little bit more

in the strikeout department in order to lift the ball more. And you can see that struggle in his ground ball rate, which at times has been really bad and other times has been pretty good. So I would actually kind of assume that when he first hits the major leagues, he has like a 55% ground ball rate and, you know, decent enough power because when he does hit the ball, he hits it hard.

But I think there is a little bit of risk that he doesn't, you know, become who he is from day one as well. So not only do you have a risk that he doesn't make it, but then there's the risk that like, you know, this type of profile, this person's made a swing change like this, like the adjustment period might be longer than one that we saw from like Churio. That's what I'm trying to say.

Right, and I guess with the crowded nature of the depth chart and not having the extension Churio did, the path back to time at AAA might be viable. So you have to keep that in mind. Again though, price is low enough, ceiling is high enough, maybe the power is not there right away but the stolen bases are. I'm in at this price on Roman Anthony, I think it makes sense. He can be your one prospect you're waiting on, the guy that you cut after a couple of fab periods if he's not up and getting

that opportunity as soon as you want and in more optimistic views. Last player we're going to cover today, and guess what the late late outfielders are gonna get their own Episode maybe we'll put them with the UT only players that probably makes some sense as far as grouping some guys together that yeah Because I do want to talk about how much I like Jordan Walker again Yeah, and he's the player we're gonna talk about the last one in this group. Oh Walker. All right nice you get the floor for Jordan Walker the projections are nice and last season was surprisingly heavy with time at AAA. And yet, when you look at this Cardinals team,

the rule of five, if it's real, Wilson Contreras, Lars Knutbar, Jordan Walker, Yvonne Herrera, Brendan Donovan by WRC+, come out as their top five hitters right now. Now, the rule of five, he's also a righty. So it's like it's either going to happen or not. I don't think that they're going to do small side platoon, you know, in the major leagues.

But the rule of five thing that I would point out is you can have a player that is definitely in the group of players that play the most that's not in the top five For projections so counting off the top five projections does not define the group You have to go because there's also glove you know And Mason wins in their five Mason win is one of their five Most used players over the course of the season, right? He's a core guy on this roster. And one thing I also noticed,

especially this is relevant to the Cardinals, is you can, when we do the build a bench and we talk about, oh, you have to have a backup center or backup shortstop, you can have players that are starters at other positions that are your backups at those, and that opens up more possible platoons and more bench spots, you know what I'm saying?

So like the Cardinals, I think the backup shortstop is Brandon Donovan. And. Really? Could be. I think so. I don't know. Yeah.

I think they're just like, Mason Wynn's gonna play every day, so it doesn't matter. We don't have a backup shortstop. That's what I'm saying. They have one, but yes, okay. But I don't think they would need, they would feel like we don't need to roster, like they did roster Brandon Crawford last year

in that role, but I think once he left, I think Donovan is the back of Shorzo. And I think Newt Barr can be the backup center fielder. So that opens up to kind of bench spots and you can do more if you have that sort of situation. I think it all changes if Arnotto goes, Gorman is probably the starter at third, Donovan is the starter at second, Segeci makes the team if Arnotto goes. But if Arnotto doesn't go, I think it's either Segeci or Victor Scott make the team because

I think Siani either Segeci or Victor Scott make the team because I think Siani is is on there anyway Walker to me is it's pooper get off the pot time He's working with their new hitting coach to rediscover his 2024 swing which I think would be great because It's pre 2024 swing because he used to make more contact. He used to make more of his batted balls and the batter ball quality is excellent and the swing strike rate is not that bad. I just think there's still a lot of upside here and oopsie, you know, calling for two 62 with 21 homers and nine stolen bases.

Maybe that's a little heavy on the stolen bases. He's kind of a thicker guy. I don't see him stealing a bunch of bases. But it might be light on the playing time. 581 played appearances, what happens when you kind of think probabilistically and you're a projection system and you're like, oh, it's a 10% chance of 700 played appearances. And you know what I mean?

Like you added all the percentage chances up and you get 581 is like one way of thinking about it But I think he's more like it's either 650 or 150 That's a nasty spread That seems that seems too extreme I think it's more like 650 or like 350 Yeah, yeah as far as being, sure if he's hurt then. Right, right. But the more realistic range is probably like, yeah, 350 to 650.

So that's why the projections might come out in the high fours or low fives. Yeah, I think the deeper your league is, the more risky he is, but you know, this is a bench, like five, fifth outfielder place he's going. So I'm cool with him here. Yeah. I like him at the price too.

Was surprised at how last year went for Jordan Walker, but he's still so young and hits the ball so hard. It makes sense to take that chance one more time. And I think of the, the team previews that we're going to get to in a few weeks and figuring out how exactly the playing time is likely to go is one that I'm really looking forward to with the Cardinals in particular because there could be some nice buying opportunities in this group with or without the No One Art in Auto Trade. That's just the complicating factor right now if you're trying

to forecast it a little bit early. Good news, you can join our Discord, you can participate in the Hivemind rankings. Links for all the positions we've talked about so far are available there. There's a dedicated channel in the Discord for that, so be sure to jump in there, click on the links, drop in your position rankings, we'll combine those and share those with everybody. Once we get a nice collection, thanks to everybody who's done that so far, you can find us on bluesky, enos at enosaris.besky.social, imddr.besky.social. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for trolling me and putting this episode together today. That's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels.

We're back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening. I can't quit you. Hey, everyone, it's Robert Mays. The NFL playoffs are here, and we've got you covered on the Athletic Football Show. From wild card weekend all the way through Super Bowl 59, my co-host Derek Klassen and I will guide you through every game, matchup, and big time performance on the way to one team lifting the Lombardi Trophy in New Orleans. Catch the Athletic Football Show wherever you listen to podcasts.