Rates & Barrels - 2025 Starting Pitcher Preview, Part 1

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

Eno and DVR begin Pitcher Week with the first installment of the 2025 Starting Pitcher Preview! This episode focuses on the starting pitchers often drafted among the Top 100 Overall in early fantasy baseball drafts. Should you build your roster around Paul Skenes or Tarik Skubal and take a pitcher in Round 1, or wait a couple of rounds and find a potentially undervalued ace? How much will the Dodgers' use of a six-man rotation impact the value of their top-end starters? And which risers still have another level they could reach in the upcoming season? Rundown 2:19 ADP Tier 1a -- Paul Skenes v. Tarik Skubal in Round 1! 12:37 ADP Tier 1a -- Zack Wheeler, Logan Gilbert & Garrett Crochet 25:21 ADP Tier 1b -- Corbin Burnes, Chris Sale & Jacob deGrom, 40:22 ADP Tier 1b -- George Kirby, Cole Ragans, Dylan Cease & Blake Snell 55:55 ADP Tier 2 -- Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Gerrit Cole, Michael King, Pablo López & Framber Valdez 1:05:32 ADP Tier 3 -- Shota Imanaga, Bryce Miller, Bailey Ober, Aaron Nola, Luis Castillo, Hunter Greene, Roki Sasaki, Spencer Schwellenbach & Tanner Bibee 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 Starting Pitchers: https://forms.gle/QhdU1UimnejRG1bP6 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

Hey Spotify, this is Javi. My biggest passion is music, and it's not just sounds and instruments. It's more than that to me. It's a world full of harmonies with chillers. From streaming to shopping, it's on Prime. Hello, I'm Ian McIntosh and I'm the host of the Daily Football Briefing. What is the Daily Football Briefing? It's a special 10-minute daily show designed to bring you up to speed with the most important stories from across the football world. Except on Monday mornings when it's 15 minutes and we try to cram in the results, standings and stories from the top 10 leagues on the planet. Or at least the top 10 leagues I run on a football manager save. Follow this show today and you'll never miss another big story again, whether it's news that the Athletic has just broken. Arnstein what happened? News from outside the Premier League that other podcasts might ignore

that is a difficult one to explain so let's go bit by bit or it's Champions League week and you just need someone to put it all into context it's made for a very useful away point in a difficult game in a difficult week listen to the daily football briefing in 2025. It's out every weekday wherever you get your podcasts. What the rates and barrels it is picture week 2025. Derek Van Riper, Eden O'Serra is here with you Tuesday January 28th is the date of this recording. Smash that like button if you're watching us on YouTube. Leave us a nice rating review if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other place that allows you to leave a nice review of the show. On this

episode we start digging into starting pictures, probably going to focus on the top 25 or 30 or so, because we never know exactly how long we're going to talk. That's the magic of Rates and Barrels. We put some stuff on the rundown, we have an estimate, and we try to stay within that estimate, and oftentimes we go way over. So we get more episodes out of our rundowns, which is actually a mark of efficiency.

To be completely honest I think that's a thing we should be praised for you know we are not efficient Like the Rambler, I'm the professor curly-headed Rambler guy We do have a new nickname submission that came in from YouTube Curly the curly guy yeah Someone refer to you know as the curly guy in one of the comments And we'll take that as a submission if you think that's a nickname that should stick You know let us know drop a note in the discord if you think that's a good nickname for you know

You guys get way ruder than that Yeah, it's it's pretty calm nickname In the discord you will find a link to our hive mind rankings for this season. We'll put a link in there for the starting picture group, which will run 50 deep. You may want to listen to the first two parts of our picture week series before filling out those rankings. Or if you want to be unbiased, unbothered, unaffected by what we say, crank those out right away.

We'll take those submissions any time. We'll turn those around and provide some combined listener ranks at a later date, probably a couple of weeks from now once the series is over, once everyone's had a chance to digest it and weigh in with their own rankings. Should be a fun exercise for those who want to take part. Alright, without any further rambling, let's get to this. We're talking about pictures sorted by ADP, last 14 days from the NFPC.

These are not ENO's ranks. These are what the market are doing right now with starting pitchers. Gives you a sense of how you wanna play against the room. So, tier one, I'm splitting it into two groups. The first group are guys that go in the top 30. That means if you're in a 15-team league, they're typically going to go in the first two rounds. Occasionally you'll see some leak into round three. This

group includes Paul Skeens, Tarik Scoobel, Zach Wheeler, Logan Gilbert, and Garrett Crochet. This is a very good group of pitchers. Now, the fundamental question I think we have at the very top, you know, is are you taking a picture in round one? Because if you're doing that by ADP, it's one of skeins or scubal based on how things are going right now, and oftentimes they're slipping right outside the top 10 overall. So you're in one of those back first round positions if you're thinking about starting a team that way.

Yeah, it's rough on me because I've been, I've been doing these drafts and you know, some of the positions get pretty weak, pretty fast. Like third base is kind of crazy. If you're saying no thanks to a top bat, you're going to be weak at a position. I think, I think it's really hard to take a picture in the first two rounds and still keep pace with everybody else at every position plus the fact that just generally pitchers get hurt more often and stay hurt longer and There's more volatility in terms of how well we project pitchers versus hitters We're still better at projecting hitters than we are at protecting pitchers. So

All those things kind of combine There is one name on this list that I think is different. I think it's Paul Skeens. See, I thought you were gonna say Wheeler because he's just the oldest of the group by a wide margin. But okay, why is Paul Skeens different? Well, remember when I was talking about, and you didn't take the bait and you wouldn't fight me, you coward, about Gunnar Henderson versus Aaron Judge?

And I said, I have no questions about Gunnar Henderson and I have questions about Aaron Judge. I have no questions about Paul Skeens. Right. I don't either. Here's what I wrote. I'm going to share what I wrote on the show sheet. I don't do very often.

I just write it there and then I let Eno talk and that's just what happens. That's a dig. I don't do very often. I just write it there and then I let you know talk and that's just what happens That's a dig I just let it happen and then it's just there if I need it a health grade a Flamethrower on a team that doesn't offer much in terms of support he threw a hundred and sixty and a third innings last year So no more restrictions And I think the only thing I don't love is the pirate supporting cast could turn into a sigh everything Even with 14 to 15 wins. This is the worst knit supporting cast could turn into a sigh everything even with 14 to 15 wins This is the worst nit I have ever picked. I mean Paul skeins has a deep arsenal. He throws very hard

He has good command. There's nothing here not to like other than maybe the Pirates Goofing up games that he starts not scoring enough runs or not protecting his leads effectively, right? But he had such a tiny era last year, they still managed to win some games. They could win 2-1. Yeah, it ended up working out just fine. So I do think ADP having skeins first is something I agree with. I think the ceiling is just unbelievably high. It's like the peak Steven Strasburg type ceilings, but we don't really have those health concerns

on skeins at all. So the biggest thing he does that seems like it's a health risk is sitting so close to his max, right? He's one of those guys that's gonna pop up on those lists of Velo leaderboards where we're always looking and saying, okay, how is this group doing? Is this group actually avoiding the IL?

Because historically that group tends to end up on the IL. It's still not terrible, terrible. It's more like raw. It's like he has the highest raw velocity where that might be where it comes in. He's 3.1 off his max, which is, you know, de Gramma's 1.7 just to give you an idea of where, you know, the craziest kind of injury prone guys live. Also, if you look at my blue sky, there is a piece that I re-tweeted, and I'm sorry I

don't have the guy's name in front of me right now, but did some research into sitting close to your max and found no relationship to injury. No relationship to injury. Yeah, so that's the fun part about doing baseball research is you have to report the didn't find anything results as well which are not as exciting and don't get anybody all riled up and don't get you any followers. So I should have that guy's name but if you go to my blue sky you'll find it. The other thing about Skeens is he like has five pitches he has two fastballs and when we used to when Stuff Plus used to

say oh he's just above average in Stuff Plus and you used to scratch your head, well, new Stuff Plus has figured this one out. And I think it has to do with, you know, first of all, he throws like a splinker that's either a fastball or a change-up. And in the old model that used to really mess with the model, if it was called a fastball and it was a change-ball and it was a change over or it was a change up called a fastball, whatever it is. The new model only asks for one thing out of the fastball.

All it wants to know is what is your VELO? What is your highest VELO pitch and what does it sit at? And now all of the other pitches are defined off of that VELO and not shape. So we don't get into trouble about is it a fastball, is it a sinker, is it this or is it that. It doesn't matter. All that matters is he can throw 97 and he has this other pitch that moves like this

and sits like 92, 93, whatever you want to call it, splinker, whatever. Doesn't matter. And so by doing that, we better got a better sense of his stuff and he has the best stuff among starters in baseball. And that makes a lot more sense. I'm all for it late in the first round. ADP's sitting around 12 in the last two weeks. Early pick, fifth overall.

Some people do push him up because, yeah, if you're sitting earlier in the round, he's probably not making it back to you with your second pick. If you want him, you have to take him and just take the hitter that falls or even go pocket aces. Add another pitcher to Paul Skeens and go with a really aggressive build in that direction.

Teric Scoobel also going in the first round, reigning AL Cy Young Award winner. I mean, look, I don't know what else you could ask him to do at this point. There's one thing that really jumped off the page for me with Scoobel when I was looking at some of the leaderboards. 80.1% zone contact percentage from Scoobble last year. Second best among 58 qualified starters. Only Cole Reagan's was better at 78.3%. And Tarek Scoobble fills the zone. 56.6% zone percentage trails only Miles Michaelis. The zone percentage list, the leaderboard on that, it's a bunch of soft tossers that mostly don't strike guys out.

So to see Scoobble second on both is basically, hey, here's my stuff, it's electric, it's in the zone, try to hit it, it's a called strike if you don't, right? That's the sort of level he's at right now. Skeen's just literally, you know, said on foul territory that he went back to his LSU analytics team and they looked at the difference between him and Scoobble and found out that it was mostly like zone percentage and first

first strike percentage and stuff like that. So Skeen says he's going to try and dominate in the zone more this year and be more like Scoobble. There's a lot of people who end up being like, oh the pirates must be bad, but I'm not supposed to be bad. I've talked on this show a lot about how, like these athletes have like a lot of voices in their head, you know? I don't think that he necessarily, you know, doesn't listen to the Pirates. I think, and he even said, oh yeah,

the Pirates also told me to throw my sinker inside the Riteys, and that was great, and it really worked. So it's basically just like, oh, it was off season, he reconnected with somebody he knew from LSU, they had a conversation, the guy's like, oh, let me run some numbers and came back and said something. I don't think it was like, oh, the Pirates suck so bad that he went back to LSU.

Scoople has the same injury percentile as Paul Skeens in Jeff Zimmerman's numbers. So I think that Skeens number comes from just throwing so hard. I think they actually like fastball Velo is, is one of the inputs into his thing. Neither number is bad. They're sort of 80, 80th, 81st percentile. So that would be like a B. Which might be a little surprising to me because I would say, if I had a question

about school, it will just be health. And here's a weird little mechanics thing, my inner Nick Pollock a little bit, but also just having watched Jake Arietta a lot and watched how he sort of fell apart a little bit injury wise near the end of his career. Scuba is cross body. And part of what has made him better

is that he has become like straighter to the plate. And I have a piece on him about the work that he did to kind of be straighter to the plate. And I have a piece on him about the work that he did to kind of be straighter to the plate. But if you watch him land, he still lands where he's going across his foot. And he's made that a little bit more straight to the plate, but that may be part of some of the injury risk. Also, he throws real hard.

So, and he has a Tommy John on his record. So, you know, there's, I think that's, if you say like what questions you have about the restless list, that's my question for Scoob. It's really just, it's the health. And he like really pushed the innings last year. Right, pretty big jump for him. Left arm fatigue cost him time in 2022.

Flexor tendon surgery in 2023. You mentioned that TJ, that was all the way back. I think 2016 and 2017 was when he was missing time from that, so it's been a while, but it is on the ledger. But the flexor tendon can also be seen as a precursor, so. Right, but getting that fixed, maybe, maybe, maybe, just enough to keep him healthy. I'm surprised they're similar in health grade.

I would've thought there'd be at least a grade or two difference between skeins and scubal, basically we know so far. Palskein's 81 and scobble is 80, but yeah. I just thought bigger gap. I'm putting enough injury risk on Scoobble. How about this? I'm not really into it.

Can you guess Wheeler's health grade? He's probably up to an A now. Why isn't he an A at this point? Because once you have arm injuries, no, they're an input. Sure. It doesn't matter how long ago. Yeah.

So he's a 77. But the arm injuries I just described for Scoobal don't penalize him as much as ones that are further in the rear view mirror for Wheeler? Maybe this should be something about a few years ago. I kind of think this is weird, man. Yeah. Age is a factor.

Look, Zach Wheeler turns 35 in May. That's what makes him different of the other pictures that are in this group. The hamstrings could go, or the back, or whatever. Sure, all that other stuff becomes more of a problem. I think what he's doing though, is he's slowing down the velocity waning over time. Four year velocity slide, still averaged 95.5

on the fastball last year, because he has a great wide arsenal. We talked about it on our how to be a pitching nerd episode a few weeks ago with Trevor. Wheeler's arsenal also connects really well. It is a very well thought out group of pitches that all kind of interact with each other in the best possible ways. So I think if you're looking for the recent track record, a longer track record with what I think is better results based health, then I think Wheeler early in round two as your first pitcher absolutely makes sense.

I have no, I have no real strong case against it because I think the bats early in round two as your first pitcher absolutely makes sense. I have no real strong case against it because I think the bats that go in that same range are pretty comparable. It really just comes down to your preference of when you want to start building with your pitching. I'm not going to tell you not to draft Zach Wheeler at that price. No, me neither. Not really.

There is a pitcher that I have in my top five that is not in the top five that is available in the third round, and that has been my build so far. I've just taken him over and over again, so We'll come to him when we get there, but here's a board for you. This is above average stuff above average locations last year with new stuff and Five fastballs or more. Five pitches or more. Five pitches or more, right. Mostly two or three fastballs.

Yeah, so five pitches above average stuff above average location. It's a really good list. It's got Zach Wheeler on it. It's got George Kirby on it. It's got Logan Gilbert on it. It's got Paul Skeens on it. It's got Zach Wheeler on it.

So those are the great pitchers that are in this tier because they have a wide arsenal with great stuff and command. And if you look at it, their injuries are not that bad across the board. Their Max Scherzer is on this board, but he has the worst injury percentile. That's why you take him later. Brandon Fatt is on this board. He doesn't have the, he has a, like a different level projection than the other guys, but if you like Brandon Fott,

it's nice to know he's on this board. Spencer Schwallenbach is on this board. Cutter Crawford is on this board, but also has the worst projection along with Ryan Nelson, who's somehow still on this board. Those two had the worst projections because they have not had the greatest results on the field and in Cutter Crawford's place, you know,

has a difficult home park. But just to finish out the list, Jose Soriano, Aaron Nola, and Gavin Williams are on this list. So I like it as a list because it's like, oh damn, this is a list of the best pitchers in baseball plus an old guy, plus like two or three question marks that could be undervalued

this year. So it's nice to put a bunch of people together where you're like a bunch of tier one guys, a bunch of guys who could be tier one, and then some late sleepers. It kind of makes you think a little more of Jose Soriano and Gavin Williams, which has been what I've been feeling in drafts this year. Yeah, I think those are the names that really kind of stood out there. Aside from the fact that it solidifies many guys in this group being firmly in the top part

of the first tier, Gilbert pops on a lot of lists. I feel like every time you run a positive board the last couple of years, Logan Gilbert shows up on it. He bumped the K-Rate up to 27.4%. That was a career best. It's backed by the best swinging strike rate we've-Rate up to 27.4%. That was a career best. It's backed by the best swinging strike rate we've ever seen from him at 14.9%. The Velo jumped a full mile per hour on his fastball last season. 585 innings pitched now over the last three

seasons combined ranks fourth only to Logan Webb, Aaron Nola, and Corbin Burns. As I was kind of digging through Gilbert's profile, I wondered if he was a little bit unlucky on the road. The ERA was close to four outside of T-Mobile. We talked about the difficulty for hitters hitting in that park and talking about how that park also boosts strikeouts. So the K-rate does drop a little bit for Logan Gilbert

on the road, but this still looks like a really good frontline profile. I don't really see anything wrong with Logan Gilbert whatsoever and I think, you know, compared to Garrett Crochet, who has, I think, superior stuff, there's much less to worry about on the health front based on how they've got to this point in their respective careers. Yeah, I mean, Gilbert is fascinating to me because the only thing that has been true of him, that has been true since his rookie year is that he has a good fastball. And even that, like, you know, he came into the league with an 18-inch vertical on his

fastball and now he has a 16-inch. But the Velo is good. The Velo, he's the biggest Velo gainer of the course of the season last year. The Velo is good. The extension, he's like the biggest extender in baseball. He has like 7.5 feet of extension. So, you know, he is throwing that ball like it is exploding in on you.

And everything around it has changed. He came up with a sweeper. And what he thought was his ace in the hole was his curve ball, 75 mile an hour curve ball with big vertical break. He thought that was good. Well, stuff plus that it was bad. The results that it was bad. He had to get rid of the sweeper because he couldn't command it.

So he started throwing a gyro and he started becoming a little bit more what he is now in his second year. He added a sinker. He was a sinker gyro guy, still throwing that curve ball, but throwing it harder. Last year he in 2023, he added a sinker. He was a sinker gyro guy. Still throwing that curveball but throwing it harder. Last year he in 2023 he added a splitter. Then last year he threw 400 splitters and then he got a new curveball. His curveball is totally different. It's kind of like the sweeper come back but at 83 miles an hour because it has great horizontal brake, really poor vertical break, but it goes 83 miles

an hour. So he's basically got a secret sweeper in his curve ball, a split finger, the gyro slider, a cutter now, and a sinker. So he's a wide arsenal guy with command and he's really pushed every pitch as far as it can go. I don't know if there's another level. Like do you think he's a Cy Young guy? I think he's got the ingredients for it. It's just everything sort of clicking all at once, right? It's just getting the year where the ratios on the road are a little bit better. Maybe you have better luck on home runs on the road, get suppressed randomly, and the ERA drops by a run, and then all of a sudden he looks like a Cy Young guy. I think it could definitely happen. I mean, I think Gilbert is, to me,

in some ways like a younger version of Wheeler. Yeah. From a profile perspective, you're like, hey, he's making all the tweaks, he throws hard enough. Both have good extension. That's a pretty good one. It should age really well,

so if you wanted to flip them because you're not into guys that are gonna be 35 this year, you're just worried about the small stuff starting to break down on Wheeler, I could get on board with that. I just think Gilbert looks like a very safe early round pitcher. I know that's a loaded thing to say at any given time because none of them are actually that safe. But in the face of Garrett Crochet sitting right next to him, if we're just gonna slap another chunk of innings on last year's

workload, then the ceiling workload for Garrett Crochet sitting right next to him. If we're just gonna slap another chunk of innings on last year's workload, then the ceiling workload for Gareth Crochet is fine. His health track record for me is the worst of the pitchers in this top five. I'm having a really hard time telling anybody that the skills he showed us last year are not real. Like I think that's silly. I think Gareth Crochet looks legitimately elite by skills. And I say that as someone who kind of chortled the idea of him being a starter because of

health concerns. He was drafted in the COVID year in 2020. He was a reliever in 2021 for the White Sox. The injury that year was a strained lower back. Tommy John in 2022 and then the recovery in 2023 also had some left shoulder information that slowed him down. In college, he had a broken jaw from a comebacker. But that goes in the random bucket of injuries.

It's just a thing that prevents you from getting a full workload. It's not anything you can control. So it's a bad health grade. But is it as bad as the reputation? How much does the 2024 got through the season healthy, even with some restrictions in the second half? How much does that change your outlook for Garrett Crochet and your confidence in his ability to tack some more

onto that workload in his first season with the Red Sox? Who do you think has a worse health grade, him or Chris Sale? Sale, I would think, because of age and also a lot of different injuries. It is the worst health grade that I've got in my top 45 other than a certain ranger's starter. Oh, other than what, Salem DeGrom?

Yeah. So those are the only two pitchers in your top 45 with a worse health grade than Garrett Crochet or Salem DeGrom? Tether glass now. Okay. And that is it. I mean, I think it's legit.

It's a bad health grade. I would give it a C or whatever. You know, he throws hard. He hasn't been able to stay healthy. But you know, one thing is I do think that some players, some pitchers are just better suited. Their health is better taken care of as starters than relievers.

I mean, relievers, it's get hot, you know, maybe get hot two days in a row, maybe get hot but don't get in the game. There's a lot of these like sort of secret ways that the schedule can kind of interfere with you that aren't going to be show up on the on the innings total you know I mean like just getting warm in the bullpen and then not being used how much does that take from you

whereas a starter it's like you know exactly what's gonna happen you have all this time in between to build up to it you have time to rest you have time to do you know tweak your your schedule in between. Scoobble did a lot of different things this last year with his schedule in between his starts, trying to do a little bit less is more. The Braves throw like 15 pitches in their bullpens between starts. There are different ways that you can tweak your schedule as a starter to stay healthier. There could be something there that will help crochet stay on top of his

health. And then I just wanted to point out from a pitching standpoint, I guess you could say, Oh, he's a two pitch pitcher. He threw five pitches in September over 5%. And this is because his cutter was starting to get in a hit. So his cutter in June had a 170 slugging. His cutter in June had a 170 slugging. His cutter in July had a 240 slugging. His cutter in August had a 1.4 slugging. And his cutter in September had an 875 slugging.

So I think he became a little bit predictable. You know, he first came up with his fastball sweeper and he was throwing a left-handed sweeper to right-handers and right-handers were hitting it. So then he went to the cutter and I was like, oh my God, this guy is everything we want him to be. And then after a while, people started targeting the cutter over the force-aimer, I think,

because, you know, hey, is it easier to hit 92 or 98? And so they started to hit the cutter, so he realized, okay, now I need to become more of a pitcher than a thrower. You know, the good news is all of his pitches that he throws are good So I think it's the only thing to worry about is his health grade All right But it sounds like your planning is such that Garrett crochet doesn't end up on your teams And that's because of what you can get in the back

part of this extended first tier right. If you move past the top 30-ish overall by ADP you get to this next group that includes Corbin Burns, Chris Sale, George Kirby, Jacob deGrom, Cole Regans, Dylan Cease and Blake Snell and the back of that group kind of spans into the middle around four, right around that pick 50 overall mark. I use the New York Times Games app every single day. I love playing connections. With connections, I need to twist my brain

to see the different categories. I think I know this connection. Look, Bath is a city in England, Sandwich is a city in England, Reading is a city in England, and I'm gonna guess Derby is a city in England. Sandwich is a city in England, Reading is a city in England, and I'm gonna guess Derby is a city in England. I started Wordle 194 days ago, and I haven't missed a day.

The New York Times Games app has all the games right there. I absolutely love spelling bee. I always have to get genius. I've seen you yell at it and say, that should be a word. Totally should be a word. Sudoku is kind of my version of lifting heavy weights

at the gym. At this point, I'm probably more consistent with doing the crossword than brushing my teeth. When I can finish a hard puzzle without pins, I feel like the smartest person in the world. When I have to look up a clue to help me, I'm learning something new. It gives me joy every single day.

Start playing in the New York Times Games app. You can download it at nytimes.com slash games app. Corbin Burns, I believe, is the guy you keep drafting, right? You have belief that he is still a top five starter and that you're getting maybe a full round-ish discount off of what he should be going for in most drafts. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot being made of his drop in strikeout rate, but if you use Stuff Plus to fuel

your projected strikeout rate, he has a 24.5, whereas Logan Gilbert has a 25.9, Zach Wheeler has a 26.6 in terms of projected strikeout rates, and it no longer really strands out as a place that you're giving up strikeouts. And then if you kind of look at his health grade he has an A health grade the other A health grades in my top ten are Logan Gilbert, Dylan Cease, Fromber and Kirby have A

health grades so you know I like what I've been trying to what I've been trying to do is get someone who's really good but also has a health A health grade and that's why I but also has a health grade. And that's why I think it's a little bit hard. It's for two reasons. If you take garret crochets or first, that is fine. But I have a list of great injury wrist starters that are gonna be available later.

And there's a whole crew of them coming up that's just like Strider, Glassnow, Snell, Sasaki. Like the whole Dodgers rotation will be available to you as your second pick, but not if you take Crochet. I mean, you really don't, I don't think I wanna go in to the season with Crochet and Strider as my one and two. I would just, I would feel that that was really risky. It's very risky.

It could be fun, but it's very risky. It's very YOLO. Well then you get real boring with the rest of your staff, I think, if you go that aggressive with injury risk in that top two. Yeah, but then you get none of the guys, like when I looked at who broke out last year and who my rankings really killed it on,

it was like 70s to 80s, you know? And guess who you can pick in the 70s 80s guys who are young don't have a track record You know have good stuff maybe injury risk That's all open to you if you're a little bit more conservative at the top, right? It becomes less open to you and in the 70s 80s boring guys that I have in the down there that you Mitch Keller, you know, you wanna take Mitch Keller or do you wanna take Sean Burke or Shane Botz? And so my bill preference is be a little bit conservative early, cause that'll open up the rest of the board for you.

I have no major arguments against that. I would definitely be on the side that you outline of not wanting to pair a crochet with a strider. If I'm gonna take one, I'm not taking them both on the side that you outline of not wanting to pair a crochet with a strider. If I'm gonna take one, I'm not taking them both on the same team. The Burns projections, I think we've mentioned this before, are a little odd just because they don't seem to put the appropriate weight on what I think is a proven ability to reduce batting average on balls and play. I think the cutter is a big part of that and all the projection systems you see at FanGraphs

are tacking 20 plus points onto his BABIP. That's where I think you're getting some of the whip inflation especially, that category. I mean you see 1.17 from ATC is the most optimistic we see over at FanGraphs right now. A 123 from Steamer at the high end. We haven't seen a whip like that from Corbin Byrne since that disaster 2019 season. It just doesn't look at all like the pitcher that he is to me.

He's 30, not like 35 or whatever. And in terms of Velo, like the Velo has dropped a little bit, but, and he was one of the bigger droppers over the course of last season, which did upset me to find. dropers over the course of last season which did upset me to find but with a cutter like you know it's 95-3 instead of 96-5 and yeah that's different but it's also a 95 mile an hour cutter with wicked movement that he found again late last season and that he can add a sweeper to. I see enough pictureability. I went on, I think it was a Toolshed podcast with Clegg and Cross, and we were talking about dynasty pitchers,

and I was sort of feeling out like what is different for me versus redrafting dynasty, but I think that it can actually help you understand a little bit better what you might wanna do in a redraft too, which is, yeah, I'm a stuff guy. I've always been a stuff guy. But what I wanna see for continued long-term success

is stuff like, how many fastballs do you have? How many pitches do you have? Some sort of pitch ability command stuff. I think that becomes really important when you're talking about being good every year, year over year. I think Corbin Burns has it. Yeah, I'm with you.

I have no arguments. A man's wide arsenal, you know, pitch ability. Like, I think he has that. No arguments here against Burns still being in this tier. We talked about Chase Field also playing surprisingly tough on left-handed power, so as a right-handed pitcher, you're giving up the platoon split. That's not a bad place to do it for a home park either.

I think we'll see more sweepers then, because he hasn't got a cutter that suppresses the lefties, and the park suppresses it, so, you know, here's some more sweepers for the righties. So you put together a board that I didn't expect to see on day one of Pitcher Week. You sent it, I opened up the chart, and I was like, okay, these are a bunch of guys

that we may talk about on day three or on the cutting room floor, you know, fourth day. Why are you sending me this? Why are you sending me this? And I go through the names, and Carlos Carrasco, James Paxton, okay, we don't care about that. Chris Sale, what is Chris Sale doing on this leaderboard? Well, the leaderboard.

It's a laggard board. It's a laggard board, yeah. The pitchers with F health grades, only one to two fastballs and below average stuff. So even in the revision, Chris Sale still doesn't have a favorable grade from Stuff Plus. It doesn't, and I wanted to label this, I'm not saying, I'm just saying. With somebody with Chris Sale's track record,

Stuff Plus doesn't mean that much anymore. I'm not saying he's bad saying. With somebody with Chris Sale's track record, Stuff Plus doesn't mean that much anymore. I'm not saying he's bad because of Stuff Plus is bad. But you know, the health grade isn't good and you know, when you do sort him that way, he does end up with a lot of bad names. I just don't think that I'm going to end up with a lot of sale because like I said, I'm looking for A health grades for my first pitcher and there's no way I'm giving him an A health grade. He's 36 now and the recent injuries,

I mean if you go back. Remember how the season ended? Like he was injured. That's the one that I think is sneakily being forgotten about is he couldn't pitch in a situation that was must win. He couldn't go and I know there was a follow-up report not long after Atlanta's season was over where they said Chris Sayles is gonna have a normal offseason or something to that effect, right?

Like he could have pitched if we made it, you know. Right, the last time he pitched was September 19th. Right, you needed him then and he wasn't pitching so it wasn't nothing so it's one more relatively small addition to the ledger. I mean, look, last season was the lowest ERA we've seen since 2018. It was the most innings we'd seen from since 2017. If you Marcel his innings projection, you take the last three years, 50% on last year,

30% on two years ago, 20% on the year before that, that's not going to get you a very good number for someone going in this group. That's not the only way to do it. What is the number you get? Probably like a, I'm guessing like a 130 or something. If that, yeah, that might even be light. I mean, it might be a little heavy.

But he's further removed from the Tommy John surgery, right, it was 2020, then he missed the 2021, or parts of 2021 from that. Had the stress fracture in his ribs, fractures in non-pitching wrist, had shoulder inflammation in 2023. That stuff's not far away for a guy his age. I liked him when he was coming at a discount last year.

I thought it made sense when Atlanta went out and made the move to get him, because if he's healthy, he's really good. I just think the if he's healthy is a much tougher thing to buy into with him turning 36 at the end of March. Like remember how the Braves season ended like they had to like they were fighting off the Mets right so for him not to pitch after September 19th he missed plenty of games that the

organization probably was like could you pitch? We'd rather like, you know win the division or whatever, you know So I'm just worried about that health grade there. And like I said, there's a whole Tier of guys coming up that he fits almost better in I've got projected for him 156 innings that's right right now and That might be heavy, but it is also the lightest projection that I have before you get to Jacob deGrom at 14. I did go on TV and say,

Jacob deGrom in my top 10, but as I kind of stress tested that and was like, ah, er. Would I really do that? No. Especially in the highest entry fee league you play in, would you really do that? Yeah, would I do that in the main event?

No, okay, so change your ranking Well, let's skip Kirby for a second just because I think the Grom versus sale if you're thinking about sale Maybe you're thinking about the Grom Grom's gonna turn 37 in June on the one hand He might have enough years left on his contract three to pitch his way to Cooperstown. He could do that. That's possible. And even in the brief time we saw him down the stretch last year, it looked like the stuff was kind of back to pre-surgery levels. So a recently repaired second time Tommy John recipient, but it's a healthy ligament for

now. How long does it stay healthy? And then how much do you worry about other stuff breaking? We talked about it with Wheeler, who's been generally very healthy for the last three years. DeGroms had all sorts of arm trouble, and now coming off the Tommy John surgery, at this stage of his career,

can he still give you elite ratios and an elite strikeout rate and make up for any missing volume by being as dominant as he was pre-second TJ. Just to revisit our Tyler Glass down question, you know, like he ended up the 23rd best pitcher last year with 134 innings and that was with a 349 ERA. So I could see Glass now. I mean, I could see DeGrom, you know, sneaking into the top 15 if he gets to 130 innings, because he have like a two eight, two five ERA.

I do think he is that good. And the question of can he even get to 130 innings is harder to answer than it is even for Glasnow because at least Glasnow, as much as people make fun of his lack of volume, he's repeatedly hit 100 innings in the last five seasons, whereas Dukeram has topped out at 92 in 2021. So, you know, his lack of volume is astonishing. And I had a hard time trying to put together a projected number. Right now I have 131. ATC has 114 and FanGraft's Jeff Charles has 152.

So that's probably something like your 40th, 60th, and 70th percentiles or something, 80th percentiles. I can't imagine he does much more than 152. He does have more years under that contract with that team. So they don't, I don't think they're just gonna, you know, yolo with him. Yeah, I think it's just how he feels. If he feels good, then they'll just let him keep going. At this point of his career, this point of his life,

I mean, what are you holding back for? That's the only, I guess, thing I can tell myself. Yeah, the two years you're paying him $37 million? As an organization, yeah, but like, what about, what about DeGrom? Doesn't he want to just go out there and let it happen for 170 plus, if possible? I'm not expecting 170 plus.

It's a very low probability outcome. It's at least possible. I don't think they're gonna restrict the workload that tight. It's gonna be IL or like fine, and he somehow gets there. He was worth 2.2 wins above replacement in 2022 in 64 innings. Yeah, it's absurd.

He was worth 4.9 in 92 innings in 2021. I mean, he is crazy good. If he, you know, Steamer says if he gets to 150 innings, he's a five-win pitcher. Now, that is huge. I mean, we're just talking really quick sidebar about Hall of Fame. If he gets a five point pitcher this year,

he gets up to 48 war and he starts getting close to Felix who we've been talking about as a possible guy and he's still pitching. If he gets up to 48 war and he's pitching and he can get to like 55 war, if he gets to 55, 56 war, he'll probably have more than 2000 strikeouts at that point because of his crazy insane strikeout rate.

And he could have, you know, a final resume where his ERA for his career is under three. His strikeout rate for his career is over 30%. He has 2000 strikeouts. I mean, that starts to sound a little bit like a Hall of Fame case. It's going to look strange compared to the old way starting pitchers reviewed. But I think it's going to be a good snapshot of what the more modern game looks like, what it's done to pitchers. And of course, DeGrom, a late starter, making the move in college from shortstop to pitching and taking a little while to break through with the Mets, too. His timeline also has worked and taking a little while to break through with the Mets too.

His timeline also has worked against him a little bit on top of the health that's plagued him now for a few years. It's extremely risky. I think it's even riskier than Garrett Crochet just to put a rough grade on it. I paired DeGrom with Skeens in a pocket aces build that we did in first pitch Arizona.

Not sure I would do that over and over, but wanted to make a big ratios play in that league and thought that would be a fun way to do it. We did skip past George Kirby. George Kirby, the arsenal and the command just seemed like someone who would be, I don't know, eight years older. It's great, I'm not even knocking,

every time I look at him I'm like, wow, he's still really young. Does his skillset allow for more swing and miss? Is there another level with Kirby if he were to maybe choose the challenge hitters more often instead of trying to work with pinpoint command? I get the sense sometimes that George Kirby's command is part of the reason why the strikeout rate doesn't go higher. It's being able to do some things that some guys simply cannot do around the edges of the zone.

Yeah, you know, and then he sort of publicly last year said I need to expand further outside of the zone, you know, in order to get my whiffs, and I need to be comfortable with that. And so he had the lowest zone percentage of his career, and, you know, his strikeout weight went from 22.7 and 20.3 to 23.0. So I don't think the added strikeouts were really there. And what I ended up seeing from him was that he thought,

oh, the easiest place for me to strike people out is with my foreseam above the zone, like above and beyond and outside the zone. And I just saw hitters taking that foreseam above the zone more often, and then sometimes even targeting it, and hitting some homers off it. So that's what happened, I think, down the stretch where he wasn't as good. I think if I've got my narrative correct,

that's what was going on. Let me see what his ERA was in the second half here. He had a 393 ERA in the second half that had a 684 in August. Yeah, that's when we were all, what's going on with Kirby? He did get back to a three ERA in September and I think all the things I was talking about, the soft skills are all there.

It's a large arsenal. I'm sure you can see, oh, they're not swinging at my foreseam or, you know, I have to do other things. I think he's sort of savantish in that aspect where he'll, oh, okay. You know, I'll start throwing my sweeper more. I'll start throwing this more. I'll start throwing that more. So I think with the wide arsenal command like that and good enough stuff, I'm willing to bet on it. He's one, he's in my circle of trust in terms of having an A health grade and having side type upside. Sure, so he's your Corbin Burns fallback

because you can have a plan. Say, I want Burns as my first pitcher. You want to have a fallback or two that you trust for that build. Kirby definitely in there. The two guys that go behind DeGrom or even we'll say all three, they kind of have similar profiles.

Cole Regans, Dylan Cease, Blake Snell. In Regans' case, he shaved the walk rate down to 8.8%, better than it was, still not elite, but still very good. Misses a ton of bats. I would say you could put him in the group of guys with a gradually improving health grade, showing he can stay healthy over a full season, but where are you at with Cole Regans at this price?

Zimmerman has him with the same health grade as Fromber, Cole Regans, and just a little bit below Dylan Cease and George Kirby. Basically a 91st percentile injury. I think that he must not have minor league injuries in there or something, because Cole Regans had a TJ and it didn't hold and he had to have another.

So I can't give him an A health grade, sorry. I don't know what that's coming from. But I remember Pablo Lopez is one example I can think of a guy that had ongoing concerns, shoulder maybe and elbow, shoulder, forearm. I can't remember exactly what it was. And it just kind of got past them at some point. But worked past it, yeah.

It just, three years now, going back to 2022, with the hundred and eight plus. I think they're both tread guys, too. Yeah, so you can, Zach Wheeler, early in his career, wasn't an A health grade guy. You can, over time, gonna move the grade in a positive direction. I think Reagan's, and Scoobl did it, too, last year.

I think they've sort of laid the foundation with what they did last year to start nudging that up to maybe a closer to average amount of health risk compared to where they were. But last year I was more worried about Cole Regan's health than I am this year. I can't put him in the crochet, you know, sale group. The ground group is not a piece.

Less risky than those guys a little bit. Yeah. Here's one little piece of cold water that's not exciting. I compared September velocities to April velocities and you had to have 20 innings in both. And Cole Regan's was the biggest Velo dropper in baseball last year. Went from a 96-3 to a 94-7 in September. Behind him, Assad, Mackenzie Gore, Jack Flaherty. I've seen a bunch of Jack Flaherty pieces about like why is he not being signed and none of them, I don't think, mentioned

that he lost 1.2 miles per hour on his fastball over the course of season, which seems pretty relevant to a guy who had a good season but can't get any money for it Bailey Ober went from 92 3 to 91 1 he doesn't have much more reload to lose JP Sears as well Ranger Suarez was down to 91 for shota Imanaga went from 92 3 to 91 3 Those are all the guys that lost one Corbin Burns. I said is on this list lost 0.9, but he got him movement back on the curve So on the cutter, so I'll take it Chris sale lost point nine over the course of the season Barrios and Detmers finish off the list at point eight and point seven

So I'm a little bit more worried about 1.6 than I'm about point seven So the top of this list Reagan's Assad Gore Flaherty Ober those are the guys that worry me the most in terms of lost Velo over the course of last season and With Cole Reagan's at least he's a lefty who throws 94-7 it's kind of like the Mackenzie Gore thing you know both of them still throw hard both of them are still have really good fastballs so maybe you shrug it off but that in tandem with the injury history is the only thing that I wanted to kind of bring forward. Okay so are you gonna take Dylan Cease over Cole Regans or skip

both of them? I mean I think with Cease we've seen some of the fluctuations with walk rate and how that impacts his whip in particular even some pretty rough ERAs at times when it's not going well but nobody has more strikeouts of the last four seasons than Dylan Cease. 891 Ks and he's doing it with a pretty heavy reliance on the fastball slider combo too It's not a lot of the guys we've talked about throughout the show so far have a wider arsenal Cease I think is kind of unique given how heavily he leans on those two pitches yeah, he just sort of fails at that at the soft skills part of the of the Situation for me where he's so like a two-pitch guy with poor command You know, in September he was throwing the knuckle curve 7% of time,

the sweeper 4% of the time. I keep, you know, yelling that a cutter would be great because he needs something so that when he can't find the zone with his four seam, he doesn't have to just fill it up with sliders. That's what I think when he gets beat up pretty bad, but maybe he just doesn't have the feel for other pitches. I mean, he's, he's just dominating with those two pitches for the most part.

I can't complain about it. I have CIS above, I have CIS above Regans based mostly on the fact that I believe in his health grade. But in terms of some of those softer pitchability factors, I would have Regans over CIS. And it may change, the CIS ranking has bothered me a little bit because of that walk rate and because of his fluctuating

ERAs. You bet on him because the stuff is there every year. But you also know that command comes and goes, and specifically for him. So it's kind of this weird thing where it's like, OK, worst case scenario, I get tons of strikeouts and a bad ERA. Yeah, it's kind of like what I used to think about Robbie Ray earlier in his career but Cease has done it now

with a couple of peeks that look a lot better. I have thought in terms of just roto skills that Cease and Blake Snell are a bit of a spider-man meme for me and I realized there are different pitchers throwing with different hands, but. And more innings for Cease. More innings for Cease, higher peaks, better peaks, greater peaks for Blake Snell. And I think what I've tried to really hone in on with Blake Snell is the ability, we talked about it with Burns and the cutter, right?

Through the babips that you see from Burns. Hit suppression is a skill that I think Blake Snell has at a well above average sort of level. And we've talked a lot about the Dodgers being among the teams that have a year over year elite defense, at least in terms of their ability to turn balls and play into outs. They run very low babips as a team. Some of that's the staff, some of it's the defense, at least in terms of their ability to turn balls and play into outs. They run very low babips as a team.

Some of that's the staff, some of it's the defense, right? It's a combination of those two factors. So I think you're putting a guy with the ability to suppress hits in a spot where the defense behind him is great at suppressing hits also. I think that continues to hold that skill for him and takes away some of the concern we have that comes from double-digit Walk rates like three of the last four seasons Blake Snell has had a walk rate of 10% or higher

And even the year where he beat it nine and a half percent still kind of right there on that level So the bigger question with me as Blake Snell goes is just that we keep seeing Injuries, it's not that I'm worried about the in-start workloads. I think we've debunked that over the years in this show. Blake Snell's not a guy that's going four and change, barely going five and change very often. He works like a regular starter, except for when he's on the IL.

And he's been on the IL for a lot of different reasons. So you see the projections have an inning spread of like 157 to 171 and I think that's a workload he's reached in 2017 and 2018 and then once again in 2023. Otherwise he's fallen pretty far short of that so I do have a hard time with innings on Snell more like I do with the likes of Sale and DeGrom. I think injury risk wise he fits fits into that bucket, but in terms of age, maybe that's where there's a little less risk with Snell, and that's where I think this discount's kind of intriguing

if I either don't have a pitcher yet, or I at least didn't take one of the high-risk guys as my SP1. Just one factor you didn't mention. What did I miss? Dodger's six-man. Yeah, and for a guy that misses time anyway, we've already sort of seen what he does in not complete seasons

No, I think he's he's great I just think that I'm topping like I have him projected for the most innings among Dodgers pitchers and I haven't projected for 139 and it's partially because of his own history But partially just because of the Dodgers having excellent depth and going to a six-man rotation, I think that even if one of their top six guys is hurt, they're gonna keep a six-man rotation because they can throw a Landon Mack for a couple weeks, you know, until somebody gets healthy or whatever. And so I think that these guys are topped out at 135-140 innings as a

max. So I'm not gonna give him 157 or 170. I've got him at 139 and I've got him in my tier of injured guys, of injury risk guys. Not as much because of his own injury risk, because I do think he will be the biggest volume guy on the Dodgers, but you know, what does that mean to be the biggest volume guy on the Dodgers? Let's do this.

Since 2021, split the seasons, only Dodgers. I got you, I got this. I got this all ready to roll. I don't have enough for the screen, but I have it. So eight seasons since 2019, where they've had a starter go over 150 innings. Eight seasons and it looks like two were one guy who's no longer there, two were another guy.

Yeah, Walker Bueller's got the first two, 207 and two thirds. Kelsey Kershaw used to, but those are 130s. Like I have. Those are way back. Kershaw in 2019 got to 178 and a third. Other seasons, there's two from Julio Urias in there. There's one from Hingen Ryu at 182 and two thirds. 2022 Tyler Anderson, 178 and two thirds innings, kind of forgot about that,

and Kenton Maeda back in 2019 just barely got there at 153 and two thirds, but that includes five full seasons. I'm all day doing since 2020 though, because you know, since 21, the last four years, because they've more solidified the six man rotation, you know, with the personnel since, because Kershaw was really old,

and they wanted to give him more space. So since 2020, they've only gotten over 150 innings four times, it was Urias, Anderson, Urias twice, Anderson and Bueller. So I guess you could say Snell could play the role of 2022 Julio Urias, and get 175 innings? Yeah, they were all 175, I had innings? Yeah, they were all 175. I had to filter at 150.

They were all 175 or more. It gives you that glimmer of hope that you could actually get something that still looks like a full workload, even in that rotation. It's basically the IELTS stance you have to worry about. That they're just covering themselves with all the injury risk they have

by having that depth and taking that sort of approach. Yeah, I also just wonder, like, they didn't ever say they were doing a six man rotation, and they were doing it, kind of, so when they do a six man rotation, does that actually mean kind of a seven? I don't think so. I think you're, it could.

You know, you can always, like, once they get used to that extra day of rest, then sometimes you could be like, oh well, we'll just use the off day or. Have one more day of rest. Yeah, I don't know. At a certain point, doesn't that start to work against you? Like, is there too much rest based on what you're used to? I don't know. That's another research paper that we need that might come back with a null result.

I just have a, you know, Snell for me is injury risk plus rotation risk. So I think I have him near the top. I have him and Glassnow at the top of a Dodger's tier. In fact, I have five Dodgers in a row. You've tiered the Dodgers? That's what you've done? ADP is not that far off. I have, it goes for me, DeGrom Strider,

Glassnow Snell, Sasaki Otani Yamamoto. Is that crazy? I think the way you have them ranked means you're going to end up with some of them. I think so, but I almost don't care which one. Right, so you're gonna end up with the ones that fall, and right now that's- Which might be Yamamoto or something?

Maybe it's Yamamoto, more likely It's glass now based on right now But then that changes if we roll through spring training and he's completely fine no restrictions looks good again, right? because it's another one of those situations where we're like, hey, we got some kind of Less than great news about where he was at got his elbow checked out. Then it was fine It's a great unknown as far as Tyler Glass now's actual health goes right now. I haven't projected for 128 innings. I mean, I think he can do that. Let's get to tier two where Yoshinobu Yamamoto

kicks things off. This is a smaller group going between pick 50 and pick 75. So it's Yamamoto, Garrett Cole, Michael King, Pablo Lopez, and Fromber Valdez. How many innings did you project for Yamamoto then if you've got the 130s on everybody else? 139, so I guess he's tied with snow. That's going down maybe.

You think you're gonna bring that down from 139? What did he do last year? 70? Missed about half the season with a triceps injury. I see SP1 skills. I see a guy that could finish as a top 10 starter. I see that in his range of outcomes, but projections are all calling for about a half run bump

to the ERA compared to what he did in his debut. So yeah, the workload caps, clearly you're worried about it. I'm moving ahead of the Otani right now, you've convinced me. Oh, okay. I didn't feel like that was even that persuasive. Well, he did pitch 90 innings last year, whereas Atani's at zero. Yeah, when you put it that way.

I don't know, man. Like, I just, I thought, I thought it was all working for Yamamoto from a stuff perspective. Well, even with all my questions about Roki Sasaki stuff, I just like Roki Sasaki stuff better than, like he throws so much harder, even with the decline.

Well then you may end up with a lot of Roki Sasaki because he's not even in this tier. Until again, a possible spring inflation where he gets boosted up if he looks really good. I think the most recent ADPs will be different. I mean, I was just in a draft where Rob Silver took Roki Sasaki as his number one, his ace in the fourth round, I think.

There you go. Okay, that's an indicator of what's more likely to be happening by the end of March. So today's Roki Sasaki ADP, probably not tomorrow's Roki Sasaki ADP. Yamamoto, at this price point, around pick 50, you're kind of playing the waiting game and saying, nah, it's the innings that you're worried about

and just the way the rotation is built more than anything about Yamamoto himself? I think there's some options stuff here. Frobber is super, super safe, I think, and nice health grade, pretty good pitch mix, good stuff plus, and maybe a weakness in strikeout rate, but in some of these situations, like in a draft and hold or something,

it's more important how many strikeouts they can give you per start than it is per inning is something that we heard in a group chat From JH who was on the show and so from br is somebody I think it goes deep enough in the games where he can Offset some of that strikeout percentage decrease with with just Having longer games and getting more strikeouts that way. So I like Fromber there. I think Cole got the stuff back. If you look at Garrett Cole's stuff plus, it's very different than if you look at his strikeout rate. He had a 107 stuff plus.

That's better than, what do I, that's on par with Reagan's 109. It's better than Gilbert. It's on par with Scoobel. So like good stuff plus. and I think what he did was he went to the cutter more because he lost the grip on the slider a little bit, maybe due to injury. But the good news for me is all the shapes

and V-Lows were pretty good, you know? So, an off season where he feels, he recovers and he feels better, I think Cole could get back. In terms of innings, like, I give innings to Fromber and then Cole in this group. Yeah, I think when you take a look at the broader context of the injuries this group has dealt with

and expected usage for the entire group, I'm on board with that. Fromber to me is like a left-handed Logan Webb with more swing and miss. He's a better version of Logan Webb, who I like. And that's why Fromber's in the pick 75 range and Webb goes 40, 50 picks later in a lot of drafts right now.

He's a little dependent on the bulk to get you closer to SP1 strikeout totals, but because the health grade's been so good, yeah, I think it's absolutely fine where Fromber's going right now. I like him a lot as a two, but if you're going to play the bat heavy approach first four rounds, you're going all hitters and then you want to start building a pitching staff, I think you could

do a lot worse than Framber Valdez in that spot. The Cole thing is kind of interesting because the last two seasons we've seen 300 innings in the regular season without an elite strikeout rate. It's still very good, but it's not the elite 30% plus we'd see when he was going as the first pitcher off the board or even a first rounder on a regular basis. I think he's still very good. Maybe the cumulative wear and tear is a concern, but remember, it was a nerve problem in his forearm

last year, and that's not, to me, it's not like a structural problem the same way that a tendon or a ligament would be a long-term concern. If it was no longer a problem the second half and he pitched that well, I think that's an injury you can put behind him. I see a little more of the Verlander Scherzer type stuff and command and arsenal from a guy like Cole where I think he's going to keep aging really well. We're gonna look back at the times at least in the early part of this draft season,

where he was available after pick 50, and say that was kinda silly. Why was Garrett Cole falling that much? Because you could tell me a story that Garrett Cole is going in the same spot as Zach Wheeler, by ADP this time next year. And I don't think you're making up anything that's that far fetched to get there.

If this is a road bump rather than a stop sign, and he gets back up to 180 innings, you say, well, his worst innings total in the last four years was 95. He struggled through a season with some injury and started at 341 ERA and was a valuable contributor. So that becomes your floor. 2024 becomes your floor if he rebounds this year. So buying in on the rebound for him.

Michael King is interesting. His VELO went up over the course of the season and I was a little surprised to find him on this VELO gainers list. Logan Gilbert is at the top. Brandon Fott was second one point nine. Zach Galen, I'm glad to see this because the Stuff Plus revamp was not super kind to Zach Gallin. Zach Gallin came back with a 101, no a 91 Stuff Plus on the reboot so nice to see he got some of his VELO back but Aaron Nola added VELO over the

course of season up to 92.7 in September. Hunter Brown added VELO. Pablo Lopez added VELO, 94.5 to 95.8, Logan Webb added Velo, Zach Wheeler. You know, the thing about this list is, it's just hard for someone to tell me that there's a lot of, I'm gonna say injury risk, Joe Musgrove's on this list, and he got hurt. But it's hard for me to say that somebody,

like, oh, he wasn't healthy in September. How could he not have been healthy in September? He threw the hardest he threw all year. Do you know what I mean? So I would say like, for like everybody on this list, I would say I give a tiny bit of a bump forward in the injury percentiles where I'm saying, you know, at least he finished the season

on a high note and looked good. So Michael King here up to 94-2. Maybe he can keep that VELO next year. I don't really have him in this tier though. I don't know why. I guess with the you know stuff plus rebamp on Michael King he actually had a 96 stuff plus and he's projected for a 352 ERA. So I have him in a group that comes after the highly injured guys and it's a group I like though, because it's,

I think they're, you know, you could go one, two, three pretty easily, especially in a 10 team draft, where you get, you know, somebody without injury risk, a real stud in the first group, like a Wheeler or Burns, or Regans or Kirby, you know? And then you go in your second group, you go get Strider or Snell or Glassnell, and in your third group, I've got guys.

And Pablo Lopez, Michael King are in that group, but there's also another guy that's coming up in the next tier that I really like. Yeah, I don't dislike Michael King, but I just wonder if anything other than the slider is going to be an above average pitch. Like, what else can he do to jump up? Whereas like Yamamoto, okay,

he just stayed healthy for a full season. 150 plus innings is possible, even with the six-man rotation that would make him more valuable Full season to Garrett Cole again. He'd be more valuable Pablo Lopez. I think is a little better than Michael King I couldn't find anything that was wrong dancing around that slider You know he's like he's got the slider and then everything else is sort of average II and he's like oh You don't know when the sliders coming could be the four seam, could be the two seam, could be the change up, but like, I don't know, at some point, you know, people are just gonna be like,

I'm not gonna swing it, the other stuff, or I can seed the slider, you know? I just think you get a longer track record with similar results from Lopez, so I'd rather take Lopez, I think his arsenal's a little better too. Cole and Yamamoto show more of like ace potential to me and Fromber I just see more floor with Fromber than Michael King and the sealings are similar. So yeah I would

put King last of the group and probably even take a couple guys in the group below this before I take Michael King and it's not because I don't like Michael King it's I'd like the guys that are later better than I like him. So this group doesn't even fit on the screen, it'll be the last group we can get to on today's show, but it'll get us through the top 100 overall, so I feel like we're making good progress. Shota Imanaga, Bryce Miller, Bailey Ober,

Aaron Nola, Luis Castillo, Hunter Green, Roki Sasaki, for now, Spencer Schwellenbach, for now, and Tanner Bybee. I dropped the for now on Schwellenbach because I he's turning into like a Logan Gilbert where you There no Hunter Brown in this tier. No, man, Hunter Brown is the next year Hunter Brown should be in this These things are all written in pencil this time of year as more people do their research as the confidence in pitchers being healthy as the confidence in pitchers being healthy increases when they show up to spring training healthy and we move away from draft and hold and into more of the

traditional leagues where you make your moves the pitching starts to rise so you got to take advantage of these opportunities while you can in the early early part of draft season. So we have one more board to go up I guess it's going to be next year. Yeah it's okay well save it for tomorrow if we need to but can you sell me on Shotai Managa as a true SP1? I just don't quite see it and I think something has to change for me with the fastball. I know it plays up a little bit because of... They lost a mile an hour on the pitch that change is not a good change. Right but it plays up relative to its velocity so it's not all about adding Velo.

It's more just like, look, 22 home runs allowed on that pitch. He threw it 52% of the time. Splitter's great. And even some of the stuff he didn't throw very often was getting a lot of whiffs, as I would call them long tail pitches, stuff you see less than 10% of the time. So it kind of looks like he could make some tweaks. Do you trust he could make some tweaks. Do you trust he'll make them?

Like what are we getting from Shota Imanagi in year two? I don't know. I mean, over the course of the season, he was such a fastball split guy and it didn't really change. He was throwing the sweeper 8.8% of the time in September. The sinker was 6.9, the change up 8.2. So I mean, if you, I guess that's, if your threshold is five and not 10% for has a pitch,

you know, then, you know, he had, he did have multiple pitches, but if your threshold is like, you know, something about like how good the pitch is, right? Like, and not just how much they use it. I think he's a two-pitch pitcher. If you look at his stuff plus, you find that his sweeper is 105, his fore seam is 102, and the splitter doesn't rate very highly, but sometimes that's not a great indicator

of it being a bad pitch. The change-up, 96, 97 stuff plus, curve ball 82, sinker 81. So there's not really anything else he can do except for maybe up the sweepers against righties and that's not going to help him keep them off his hard stuff. You know I don't think the sinker is good enough to keep him off the hard stuff. I don't know that there's, I think this is kind of one of those things where I thought he might be great the first time through and I do think that the more that people see him, there's a possibility

that the, that one 40 home run rate for him remains and the two 64 Babbit we saw from the amount I got last year actually goes up. So I kind of believe in these projections that are kind of like a three seven five with a low whip and a high home run rate. Yeah. And I don't think that's what I want at pick 75. It's a lot like the Bailey Ober projection. We've seen enough of Bailey Ober at this point.

Yeah, he's 6'9", and the models have never liked him, but what are you banking on for a breakout? I think you need the extreme good fortune with home run rate, I think, where, I don't know, maybe the change-up, which seems like it's pretty good, just doesn't give up as many homers, that's how he'd get there. I don't think it's absurd, but I also don't understand why you would draft the profile of Ober or Shota Imanaga at this price, especially with some of the higher ceiling guys in the

tier, right? Bryce Miller, the projections say he could split the difference between the debut and the sophomore efforts as far as the ratios go. He's shown what I think is a pretty clear field to add pitches that Arsenal is getting wider quickly. He's already got two above average pitches. He's got a great home park. I think he's a bargain relative to Gilbert and Kirby, even though we like both of those guys. So you're you're kind of getting all the things you like about having a pitcher at that park,

and you're still getting growth potential in Bryce Miller. So I think I'd rather take the shot on the guy that I think has a few more ways to get better than the two guys in the group that are bookending him, who I think are pretty much finished products at this point. Yeah, Miller's arsenal is developing. And I'm tempted to kind of do a story on the Seattle group

because I think all of them have fed off each other and they've bounced ideas off each other and they've all gotten better thanks to each other. And if you look over the course of last season, Bryce Miller didn't, you know, threw the fastball least. And that's remarkable because he's a former reliever that his best pitch is his fastballball and he threw it the least in September because he'd

really gotten and you know to a good place with a splitter so he's got that fastball splitter as a background but he's always been working on his curve which he also threw more as the season went on and the sweeper which he kind of uses a freeze take pitch. But you know, there is a, uh, there is a future for him where he kind of knows where and when to throw all these pitches, you know, and they're kind of nation pitches pitches to some extent. The only thing that makes me worried about Bryce Miller is he's a former reliever, you know, you know, hitting some new innings benchmarks and also throwing

about a mile and a half off his max. So he's got that reliever mentality in there as a starter and I don't know what that means for his health long term. I believe that maybe his health grades are worse than Zimmerman's health grades have you believe, which would give him an A. But I've got a better projection for Miller than I do for King. And I have a better projection for Miller and King than I do for Lopez and Nola and Castillo

and some other really developed guys. And then over is not even in this conversation for me right now. Yeah, I can't quite wrap my head around it. He just seems like a guy that should go 30 to 50 pics later than he does and maybe we'll see him sink a little bit as a few more exciting names prove they're healthy in the weeks and months ahead.

Aaron Nola is in this group. He was on one of those slides earlier. I mean, added a little Velo, White Arsenal, A Health Grade. Now let's throw this on. No, this is the one I wanted for Hunter Brown, but we can use it for Nola. That would be. So this is multiple fastballs,

above average stuff, A Health Grade. So that's a good list to be on. He's on this one too. He's on every board you made today, except for the bad one. Yeah, he added stuff over the course of the season. He's got multiple fastballs, multiple pitches, a health grade.

I mean, he's a really good number three in these 10 team leagues where you've decided to take a Dodger for your second pitcher. And I actually, I'd like to put forward that Hunter Brown is as well and is even cheaper. So like you said earlier, if you've got a Burns plan, then you've got a Kirby backup plan. If you've got an Aaron Nola third pitcher plan, then you've got a Kirby backup plan. If you've got an Aaron Nola, you know, third pitcher plan,

then you've got a Hunter Brown backup plan. It's a 15 team league, you know, minus the tier, you know, like these could be your second pitchers. If you went a little bit risky with crochet in the first, I think Nola or Brown are pretty good seconds. Working backwards off the top tier risky guys, Nola's someone to be looking for in this price range so long as it's available.

I think that balances out really well and kind of helps you get at least solid ratios and a boatload of Ks to help offset the possibility of some lost time from that first pitcher that you drafted. So everywhere you look right now, you're seeing some good things with Aaron Nola and where he's been going outside the top 75 in a lot of drafts. Luis Castillo of the Mariners pitchers, the one that you seem to see the most in possible trade rumors to get flipped elsewhere.

We've talked about his changes over time and it's just so weird to me when he came into the league that change up was unreal. It was such a great pitch for him and it's just become a lot less important, less effective. He's already 32. But also he kind of, the slider went in and out last year where he was actually experimenting with different kinds of sliders and threw the slider slow for like a month and it sucked. But I think that generally though,

isn't that a good sign almost? I mean, it's better than what we saw out of late career Madison Bumgarner where he refused to try anything. You know what I mean? Well, and than what we saw out of late career Madison Bumgarner where he like refused to try anything You know what I mean? Well, and I think compared to when he had two more ticks on his fastball Like Castillo does seem like he's making the sorts of adjustments you have to make knowing your velocity will not hold over time And I think that the sinker change-up guy that was in him like is still in him

It may be hard to kind of manage those release points and to be both a four seam slider guy and a sinker change guy maybe that's why he kind of he does have some poor streaks sometimes right you know there are times would be like what's wrong with Luis Castillo and then at the end of the season look up and you're like nothing you know and then he also has the weird thing where he the VELO is not great in April and everyone's like what's wrong with Luis Castillo and then he also has the weird thing where he the VELO is not great in April and everyone's like what's wrong with Luz Casilla and then he gets it back. I do think that over time

he's not gonna get as much back and you know, that's that's where how you'll see the decline but I also think that if there's Not as much risk with him. Maybe being moved out of Seattle I mean his personal splits were 315 ERA at home 425 away and that could be worrisome were 315 ERA at home, 425 away, and that could be worrisome, but he could also change the way he pitches a little bit if he goes somewhere else and bring that change up back and be a slightly different pitcher. So I think he's really high floor and I put him, even though he didn't end up in that query with Hunter Brown and Aaron Nola, that's where I have him. I have a little mini tier of guys, you know, Nola, Lopez, Castillo, Webb, that I think are just, you know, high bets for high volume,

you know, high floor, you know, pretty good pitchers. I think he's aging okay. I just think it's a clear down arrow in terms of the long-term direction. I don't see like another chapter where the K-rate comes back up or the ratios nudge back towards the lead. I think it's just gonna be a slow,

still pretty good, still pretty good, okay, now it's more of a stream. You know, Silver paired him with Roki Sasaki. Sure. That makes sense. I think that could make some sense. I like him a little more as a three than a two at this stage of his career though,

when you start thinking about how you're building out your rotation. Hunter Green is in this group as well, and he was a popular, let's see it all happen at one sort of target in a similar range last year to if I remember correctly Did nudge up to 150 in a third innings and had the ratios breakout we were looking for 275 ERA a 102 whip still had a very good strikeout rate at 27.7 percent down from the 30 and up that he had the previous two seasons with the Reds. It's another one of those electric arms that we worry about from an injury perspective

though as Hunter Green goes. So I'm just curious where you fall on him now that we saw that massive step forward a year ago. Yeah, I mean, I want to say that he's just lacking in the department of the kind of soft skills that, you know command large pitch mix those kind of things you know last year he added a splitter though which you know you come on you know he's he's adding pitches and the splitter guess what really good stuff poor command and that's not exactly what I was

looking for so right now the only pitch of his that has an above average command grade is his fastball. The four seam splitter, curve and slider all have amazing stuff plus grades. So I mean he's a little bit like a Dylan Cease but in a bad park, you know, with a little bit worse injury history. You'll see it though, if you, you know, until I have the new Stuff Plus up on Fingrass, which should be soon, you can see it in the OOPSE, a 367 projection from OOPSE because of that Stuff Plus with a lower BABIP than other people and a lower home run rate. Like I said earlier, when people were saying, why did you say that Stuff leads to certain

things and Command leads to WIFs, I guess what I was trying to say was when you look at adding stuff plus to a projection system It moves the needle most on batting average and balls and play and homers in terms of projective like predictive quality versus other Projections so you'll see oopsie has a similar strikeout rate 28 3 to steamers 28 1 for hunter green Oopsie has a similar strikeout rate 28 3 to steamers 28 1 for hunter green But it has a 275 bad by versus a 287 and a 129 home run rate versus a 142 Add it all up together this oopsie projection 367 with 28 percent strikeout rates hunter green Might have the best ace upside in this tier I mean he puts together a full season with season with innings. Like, it could be really nice. Yeah, his road splits were amazing last year too.

And he can hold his own at least, having to deal with Great American Ballpark. I think, look, you've got a would you rather as far as your ceiling goes. Oh, 205 away. Yeah, 205 away. Opponent line was absurd. He was just so good on the road last year.

152, 275, 230 away from home for the opponent's batting history. Just gross. Hunter Green versus Roki Sasaki probably won't be a toss up for long, but do you think Green carries a similar ceiling to Roki because if Roki's price jumps up, okay, there you go.

Like you may have Hunter Green sitting there two rounds later when the ADP start to change. No to be definitive I take green because I think I'm gonna be capping rookie's innings at 130 And I think green can make it to 130 And I believe in his stuff because it's in front of me and you know it's been proven I don't know sasaki's is kind of a little bit of a question mark Okay, where do you fall on rookie just to make to make it clear, where does he add in the list right now, the working ranks that are not published yet? Where is he at?

Oh boy, I better look at my ranks some more. Ha ha ha, cause I just took green over Sasaki, but I have Sasaki like 10 over greens. Ooh. Gotta, gotta, I'm still, you know, what I'm doing right now is I just, I do this thing where I just, I order them all, and then I order them again, I order them again,

I move guys, I'm like, these two guys against each other, so that was eye-opening for me. I, you know, given that, I put Sasaki and Green in the low 20s. All right, so they, you'd take them over, maybe like King and the lower end guys in the low 20s. Alright, so you'd take them over maybe like King and the lower end guys in the tier above. You'd nudge them that high at least.

I think I'd take them both over Castillo and Webb and Lopez maybe even. Okay, yeah, that's a nudge up one tier. Couple more names to get to before this one wraps up. Spencer Schwellenbach also shows up on many of the nice leaderboards that you've been pulling. What is it about Spencer Schwellenbach that enabled them to have

so much success right away because I just remembered this time last year a lot of our our darts in draft and hold were thrown at AJ Smith Schaver and Hurston Waldrip and it was Spencer Schwellenbach who came through and did, I think many of us were hoping one or both of those guys were going to do. Yeah, he just has a unique fastball,

and it's a fastball that, you know, given his arm slot, you don't expect that shape. And I think that is kind of right in the middle of modern pitching analysis. You know, that's like, that's what everybody wants. And it's what Cal Quantrill means when he says I'd rather be shorter. So I think he also had a really nice slider and I thought he had pretty good feel and a wide arsenal.

And it's just kind of a lesson in stuff. Plus, we're like, yes, A.J. Smith Straver throws harder, you know, AJ Smith-Schrauver throws harder you know and yes Hurston Waldrop throws harder but they have more conventional fastballs given their slots you know and they have more conventional stuff across the board where Schwellenbach is weird and good weird is good I don't necessarily have him this high though I was a little surprised the UPC projection is a I think a a 375 for Schwalbebach. Yeah, and that's not far off. I mean, the other projections, ATC's 371,

Steamer's 380, so they're all kind of close. ATC's lower on the whip at 1.14, and a little lower on the walk rate, five and a half percent instead of six, but that's a surprising amount of agreement for a guy that hasn't even thrown that many professional innings. Yeah, and I guess, you know, you look at his minor league

season in 2024, he had a 29% strikeout rate across two levels, and then he went 25 in the major leagues, and then everyone's saying he's only gonna do 23% next year, despite, you know, a pretty decent look at, you know, stuff plus, then a new stuff plus to a 107, stuff plus then new stuff plus still 107, location plus 109. So you could bet against the projections on this one, honestly.

And I think I'd probably have him higher than his projections suggest he should be and in this tier where he is. I love Schwalbebach. I think you are paying a steep price, but I think he can actually deliver. And, you know, innings wise, maybe there's a slight cap relative

to a few other names here. So you're looking at him for more than like 165, 170. There's probably not a world in which they let him go to 190 or 200 in the regular season, but that's pretty rarefied air at this point anyway. So I'm not too worried about it. I'm definitely a guy that I like a lot in this group at this price.

And I think this group as a whole, there's a few players I steer away from, but as long as you're looking at Bryce Miller, Aaron Nola, Hunter Green, Roki Sasaki, and Spencer Schwalenbach is being available in this range, to me they're a good nudge to wait on pitching a little bit. At least in the early drafts, you might not have that luxury by the time we get to March

and late March especially but at least for now I think a hit or heavy build is actually more feasible because of the quality of the depth that you're getting in this particular range and the tier that we're gonna start with tomorrow. Last name of the day a guy that I don't think you were as into last year as I was I didn't have him everywhere but I had some faith that Tanner Bybee might be able to put together a nice season and really kind of come close to repeating what he did in his debut. The ERA did tick up about a half run from a 298 to a 347.

Whip came down a little bit from 118 to 112. Underlying skills look pretty solid. Swinging strike rate ticked up just slightly. That kind of backed a 26.3% K rate. I think this is kind of just a safe profile. I don't really see another level, but I'd put him more in the bucket if now he's probably like a workhorse SP2 type,

I don't know, like kind of like a Zack Gallin for me. I don't know if it's because they both wear glasses, but it's really, it's more just what I expect from them. I don't think Zack Gallen ever had ace potential, but I think he's hit a very nice ceiling and maintained it for a while. I think that's the kind of pitcher that I expect Bybee to be for these next couple of seasons.

His slider, cutter, curve, and change are all rated as above average by New Stuff+. It's just that his fastball's an 84 by this. And he's been fighting that fastball the entire time he's been in the big leagues. We broke it down at one point last season on one of our episodes with Trevor. It either has to be located really well,

tweaked in some way, or used less. Any of those things would be good. And what he tried in September was that the cutter really ramped up and he went down, he threw the four seam less than he'd ever tried in September was that the cutter really ramped up and he went down, he threw the four seam less than he'd ever had in September and the cutter the more than he'd ever had. So he got to a point where it was 38% four seamers, 34% cutters, which I guess that's his slider because they only have 3% slider.

So by savant, the cutter is a slider. So he just really became a guy that was like 4 seam slider most of the time and against lefties it was more of a 3 pitch mix 4 seam slider change ups. But against righties in September he threw 93 4 seamers, 88 cutter gyro sliders, 13 changeups, 17 curve balls. So he's kind of a two-pitched guy against righties and against lefties, he becomes a more kitchen sinky type guy. But he is throwing the four seam less with every month.

It does make a question of like, yeah, like, okay, so even then he was throwing the slider 35% of the time, how much could he throw the slider? Could he just throw the slider 35% of the time, like how much could he throw the slider? Like could he just throw the slider 40% of the time next year? Could he throw it 30, 30, like could he throw it exactly as much as fastball all year? What would that do for his health grade?

What would that do for his strikeouts? What would that do for his upside? I think he's a good pitcher. I don't know how to see him necessarily repeating a three, four, seven ERA or winning a Cy Young. Right, I don't think how to see him necessarily repeating a 3-4-7 ERA or winning a Cy Young. Right, I don't think that's the ceiling I have on Tanner Bybee, but I think he's fine where he's going, kind of a younger oatmeal-y

sort of pitcher in this tier. And he's at the back of the group, right? It's just a question of how you think he stacks up to some of the guys that we're gonna talk about on part two of the starting pitcher preview. I get the feeling there's gonna be a handful of guys in tier four, the first group on our Wednesday episode, that you're going to like better than Tanner Bybee because there's some dudes that are falling right now.

Don't expect them to fall for long, but we're going to try and unearth some more value. Be sure to listen or be sure to jump into our Discord. You can join the Hivemind rankings if you want to. If you've got questions for a future episode, drop them in the mailbag channel, we're gonna compile a bunch of those and answer as many of those as we can as our position preview series winds down. If you just joined us for the first time in picture week,

good news, all of the hitter position previews are occupying the space just prior to this episode in your feed, so be sure to go back and listen to those. And again, if you're watching us on YouTube, be sure to smash that like button for us. You can find Eno on Blue Sky, enoserus.besky.social, imdbr.besky.social. That is gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels.

Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for not trolling me today and for putting this episode together. We are back with you on Wednesday. It's easy, cause we didn't talk about any Cardinals pictures. Thanks for listening. Dude. back with you on Wednesday.