Rates & Barrels - A Giants-Mariners Swap, Teoscar Hernández to LA & The Mets Make a Pair of Signings

Episode Date: January 8, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss a trade between the Mariners and Giants that sent Robbie Ray to San Francisco with Mitch Haniger returning to Seattle with Anthony DeSclafani. Plus, Teoscar Hernández joins the loaded Dodgers' lineup, the Rays make a pair of small trades, and the Mets sign a pair of veteran free agents.  Rundown 2:12 Robbie Ray to the Giants; Mitch Haniger & Anthony DeSclafani to Mariners 11:05 Teoscar Hernández to the Dodgers 18:38 Luke Raley Also Added to the M's Outfield Mix 26:35 José Caballeros with the Rays 33:20 Andrew Kittredge to the Cardinals for Richie Palacios 39:22 Sean Manaea Signs with the Mets 44:08 Harrison Bader Also Signs with the Mets 52:04 Other News & Notes Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic for just $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Monday, January 8th. Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris here with you. Thanks again to Todd Zola for jumping in last week. Eno know I have to ask because everybody's wondering, how was Hawaii? It was great. We did one of those cruises where we went out to Captain Cook's Cove and Calvin, the nine-year-old, did the high jump, the high dive off of the boat. Off the boat. Okay, I thought maybe a cliff or something. He's never doing that again because he slapped both of his hands. It's great on the video it looks like he's like changing his mind but his cousin's like nope and like turns him back around um yeah but it was it was a really quick trip though because

we were there for like four or five days saw uh kevin hastings and uh and made a new friend uh while i was out there uh we had a little fantasy uh beer sesh at ola brewing so uh that was that was fun nice i uh i did not go to hawaii last week i enjoyed winter froze your butt off hasn't been that bad yet. The worst is yet to come. But yeah, I made other life choices that I regret and I will learn from my mistakes. I will not go to Costco before a Packer game ever again in my entire life. I don't care how much money I can save. It does not matter. It is irrelevant. I will pay more and go somewhere else and hopefully go nowhere before Packer games. I forgot just how chaotic places are in Wisconsin before a Packer game, especially an important one, right?

If there's playoff implications, it doesn't matter. Any game, people just cram all their stuff in before the game and go during the game, record the first half, go during the first half, speed through the commercials. Probably be totally empty. Yes, that's the hack. I should know that by now lived here long enough but a lot's been happening around baseball i think you got the you get the

b-sides of the moves todd and i had some big stuff to talk about last week between the yamamoto and a few trades but uh this one came out of you know relative nowhere i didn't really see robbie ray getting traded he's going to the Giants for Mitch Hanegar. There's a local writer who totally called it. Really? Yeah, it was crazy. Three weeks

ago, he was like, I see the Giants making a trade with Hanegar and Ray. Wow. I guess their salaries line up. And so it makes sense for the Mariners who've like constantly looking for hitting and have discovered all this pitching,

you know, to kind of shift some resources, uh, you know, towards their hitting. And that's kind of what their GM said about this trade. Yeah, and the Giants' struggles in free agency, well-documented.

More importantly, I think this puts them in a position once Ray's healthy to have a pitcher who's above the Duscafani, Alex Wood, Sean Minaya cluster. It's clearly a cut above that in terms of the actual talent that Robbie Ray brings to the table. It's probably not going to be

any earlier than July, though, that we see him in games because he's coming back from Tommy John surgery, but there's still a few years left on his deal. So this is beyond a 2024 play. And the interesting thing here, too,

Descalfani was so good in 2021, right? A 317 ERA, a 109 whip. He's had injuries in each of the last two seasons. It was an ankle in 2022. It was a flexor strain last year. You bring him to Seattle and he could kind of fill in that last spot in the rotation. That's kind of the only thing that might be open in Seattle. Maybe he's even more of a swing man there. But the question I've had with him is, will we ever see a season 80% as good from Anthony Descathani in terms of ratios as we saw back in 21?

Because it's been a couple of rough years since. Yeah, the weird thing for me is that, you know, I think that his curveball is pretty good. And he's become basically a fastball slider guy. What I like about him is that he's definitely a two fastball guy. And those fastballs are a round league average. So, you know, it's a wide arsenal it could get wider if he throws his curveball more often i don't know maybe the the sort of rise of the slider

and the decline of the curveball are paired so maybe he can't um differentiate those really well mechanically um because he's basically a slider that's totally reversed the usage of the curveball. But if he could figure that out I think he could maybe return to somewhere where he was before because then he would have two

plus, not elite, breaking balls two average fastballs and a changeup. I mean, at the very least he could be a kitchen sink type pitcher. Yeah, and it works in that park especially. It's going from one pitcher-friendly environment to another. So I do think there's still some deeper league appeal to Descafani, help permitting as long as he goes into spring training

without any sort of limitations. Maybe there's some deep league appeal there. Hanniger getting back to a familiar place also seems… What do you think his role is, though? I think he's probably like if everybody's, if everybody's healthy, he's probably an extra starter for them most of the season. Right.

I mean, I think maybe you have some questions of how you're going to manage innings for the very back end of that rotation, but Castillo, Kirby, Gilbert, Bryce Miller, it's sort of Wu versus Dusk.

If there's a competition, but you'd take Wu versus Duskalfani if there's a competition, but you'd take Wu over Duskalfani I think 10 times out of 10, right? So I think he's the next guy up if they lose anybody. And maybe he's more likely to pitch in the first half than Ray was, because Ray's

chances were basically zero coming off Tommy John, but even Duskalfani is a health question mark himself. Some of this is also a money-related thing, right? The Mariners wanted to free up cash later on, get away from salary obligations in the future. That's the weird thing for me. Robbie Ray has an opt-out. So I guess maybe they're just nervous that he would have a middling season and then just pick up the two years and $50 million left.

Yep. that he would have a middling season and then just pick up the two years and $50 million left. But I almost feel like if he has a middling season, but he's healthy, maybe he would take the $225. I don't know. I just feel like the Giants are like, yeah, we have money,

and we have money going in the future, so we'll take that bet. But my bet is that he opts out. I think if he were healthier earlier in the year, I would be more confident in that. I think with a half season, it's a more difficult call to make. Especially for a guy

that historically had issues with control and really over his last two full seasons in 21 and 22, corrected that. Yeah, does he have it all the way back right away? Because the panic, if Robbie Ray's walk rate comes back at 11 or 12% again, just initially coming off surgery, I could see teams being very reluctant to give him a multi-year deal coming off the injury and only a half season's worth of innings.

He'll be 33 next October. There's a scenario in which he's healthy and pretty good but not great and he just takes the next two years in San Francisco. Pitches really well when he comes back. You could add a year or two to that deal with the opt-out. There's a few different ways it could play out.

Yeah, it could just turn into a negotiation where they turn it into 3-60 or something like that. He gets a little bit more. The other player involved in the deal, Mitch Hanager, going back to Seattle, a place where he's had success before, even though we know it's a pretty difficult place to hit. I don't know what to make of him other than he just seems like he's got a horrible combination of bad luck and probably just... It's not just bad luck with him, though.

He's both injury-prone and unlucky. And you see it in the plate appearances. He's topped 300 plate appearances once in the last four seasons. That throws out 2020, the season where he was healthy enough to play a full season. He popped 39 homers in 2021. He was excellent from a power perspective. So the Mariners get a guy they're familiar with. They must be comfortable enough with the medicals to say, yeah, this is fine.

And I just wonder, like skills wise, we didn't see it on a per game basis last year in the 61 games he played for the Giants. So what is left in the tank at this point for Mitch Hanegar? How much of a rebound can you reasonably expect? I mean, the barrel rate is still there. The batted ball quality is still there. And he's more disciplined. In a way, he steps in for Teoscar Hernandez, who's later on our rundown, but number one in our hearts.

The chase rate is lower. The strikeout rate is usually lower. And I think the walk rate will be higher for Mitch Hanegar going forward than it was for Teoscar Hernandez because the way that Mitch explains it to me is that he thinks it to me is that he thinks it's hard for him to make all the small adjustments that come with a nice walk rate and some of his better years

when he's in and out of the lineup. It's almost like the injuries have made him be a bench player. You know what I mean? In effect, his playing time has been that of a bench player you know what i mean and they've in effect his playing time has been that of a bench player uh because the injuries have just sort of kept him off the field in any sort of bulk fashion um i don't know it could be a story that we tell ourselves you know um or it could be part of why he hasn't been able to, when he's been on the field, you know, put together the numbers that he's had in the past.

I also think of like Joey Votto telling me like, I don't really want to talk about my stats right now because I'm hurt, you know? And so I think there's some aspect of Mitch, you know, trying to get back out there and not being a hundred percent. So yeah, I guess Seattle's just rolling the dice that they get 2021 and not

2022 and 2023. Plus, they got their Teoscar Hernandez replacement who may be able to make more contact, may be able to walk more, things that they've talked about wanting, and they've got him for cheaper than Teoscar Hernandez. Yeah, perfect lead-in

though because Teoscar Hernandez is officially on the move. He is now going to the Dodgers. It's a one-year deal, $23.5 million. One of the bigger one-year deals I can remember. It really gets him an opportunity to not only get more than he would have got if it were a qualifying offer situation, but if he mashes this year and just puts up gaudy numbers in this loaded Dodgers lineup, you could see a multi-year deal perhaps next winter for Teoscar. I think he's a really tricky player for me because the bottom can fall out so quickly

when that K rate gets north of 30%. We saw it last year in Seattle. It still ended up being a good roto season, good enough anyway. It was 258 for the average, a 26 home run campaign, 93 homers, 70 runs scored, chipped in seven steals as well. Barrel rate's still there, 13.8% last year. He was more aggressive than ever, though, on pitches outside the zone. That's the underlying characteristic that you always look at with strikeout rate. And when you see something

like that, when you see something that approaches the Javier Baez level of aggression, that's when you start to get nervous. If this was a team that I didn't think had it figured out, I would be running far, far away. The fact that the Dodgers went ahead and signed Teoscar Hernandez at least makes me intrigued by the possibility that the counting stats are just going to be absurd because of the quality of the lineup around him yeah I mean I think that's the key for me is the quality of the lineup around him because you talk

about the Dodgers being you know the second best team in walk rate the second best team I believe maybe it's like the third best team in chase rate. This is the team that was second best on base percentage. So it doesn't matter as much that Teoscar Hernandez swings from his heels and is super

aggressive. In fact, he's kind of the only guy like him now in this Dodgers lineup. And so it's like, you know, why not have a wild card in there? Why not have somebody like Adolis Garcia that could just go white hot in the playoffs? And, you know, everybody else is more disciplined. But here's the guy that's just, he's feeling it and he's going for it. I also think that there's this outfield situation there where they can put him in the best situations that are possible. Last year, he was league average against righties.

I'm not saying that he's going to sit against righties but they can you know and they probably will sit him against maybe tougher righties i don't know how what sort of rubric they'll come up with maybe uh righties with great command uh will be somebody that they sit him against they'll have some sort of modeling of how his skills fit against different types of pitchers and they will sit him sometimes because you've got tasker Hernandez Chris Taylor James Altman Manny Margot Jason Hayward and even Mookie Betts that can play out in the outfield I think Betts is going to be basically a second baseman now but you can still play Betts in the outfield. That's six quality outfielders that they're going to piece together. It's going to reduce all of their fantasy upsides.

And probably I'd say the most that any of those non-Bettsian outfielders gets in terms of plate appearances, what, 500, 550? And it's probably Teoscar, but I doubt it goes past that. Yeah, and you look at Teoscar Hernandez's history, the 670-80 racked up for the Mariners last year was a career high in plate appearances. Not surprising.

That's a pretty high total anyway. 595 was the previous high watermark for the Blue Jays back in 2021. That's probably where he would top out with the Dodgers. He doesn't necessarily need to get to 678 to be a great fantasy player, though. Again, the per-game numbers might be really, really good. Looking at the splits and some of the things he has struggled with, he had a minus 11 run value against sliders last season,

a minus 5 back in 2022. I wonder if you say righties with nasty sliders are one of the things that you're kind of keeping to oscar hernandez away as you mix and match on a week to week basis there yeah i mean for his career the slider is the worst pitcher uh by pitch values um he's a positive against every other pitch for his career. So that looks like a rubric that might work. In weekly leagues, it takes a little bit of value away because you won't necessarily get the most robust 600-plus Marcus Simeon-type playing time numbers.

But it may help him keep that batting average afloat. Maybe he'll have more of a 260-270 batting average if he's avoiding the guys that give him the most trouble. And maybe he'll do better in the games he's in

and kind of have the same amount of value just in a different shape. I'm curious to see just how much the ADP creeps up. I think Hernandez, if you look at where he's been going in just the January drafts over at the NFBC, the range is pick 123 to pick 183. It's about 11 drafts, so 150 sort of the average mark for him. Mitch Hanager, who we just talked about with similar skills,

but obviously a very disappointing injury history in recent years, has a range of 330 to 513. The injury discount there is very real. I think I would be in at the current price on Teoscar, but

not a must-grab sort of player. I'm just worried the price creeps up to the point where he's not necessarily a fair-priced player once we get to drafts here in the next couple months. The benefit the lineup gives him around him, the benefit of the way they might use him for his stats also is a detriment to his runs in RBI. So it's nice that he's in a good lineup,

but he won't be in that good lineup as much. Yeah. I think the interesting thing, too, is you lose a little bit of playing time, but you could see the average tick up. If you're using him in spots where he's more likely to be successful, maybe he hits 270 or 280 instead of 250. So it could end up being a slight net bump in value, even with a little bit of a reduction in playing time ceiling.

One other task, or Hernandez nugget to pass along. Did you know he's 82nd percentile in sprint speed? I mean, he isn't, he doesn't also have a really strong arm. Yep. He's tooled up,

but he's, he's pretty interesting player. Yeah. So, I mean, he's probably going to be mostly in right when he plays defense for the Dodgers. I imagine we'll see a lot of out men in center.

You mentioned Chris Taylor sort of in pass. I think Chris Taylor's playing time is just down. Yeah, I mean, he's another righty, and he's more of an outfielder. And I don't think he can play short as well as he used to, and that's their biggest need defensively. The Mariners' depth chart is a little bit interesting. They had another sort of minor set of deals

other than the Robbie Ray one, where they got Luke Raley from the Rays for their backup shortstop, Jose Caballeros. Yeah. Yeah, pretty interesting swap. That had something to do with... What did that have to do with?

That had to do with losing Teoscar and... And Kalnick, too. And Kalnick, that's it. So because of the Kalnick trade, they didn't have an outfitter. So now their outfield is Luke Raley, Julio Rodriguez, Mitch Hanager. But that leaves the door open for a fair amount of time on the field maybe for either Cade Marleau or Dominic Canzone.

Do you like either of those young guys better? Canzone's minor league like either of those young guys better? Canzone's minor league numbers are just absurd. I've been kind of hoping he'd get a big side platoon role. This does not help, even though it's still possible. I look at this depth chart, and

if you're a Mariners fan, I understand your frustration because it just seems like seven moves to do one little thing. It's just the amount of effort put in to move forward a foot just seems extraordinary. Very inefficient, right? I like a lot of the things they've done in this organization.

How can you not like the pitching, right? They've loaded rotation. They do a great job supporting it with a loaded bullpen you got a couple of really nice position players and you have one superstar and julio cal raleigh's been a great story mitch garver signing was fine you know i liked garver as a dh i did i i thought that was a nice addition but you look at you know josh rojas is atop the depth chart at second base louisa rrias at third. They're still missing something in this lineup. Even if you want to say that

JP Crawford is mostly the guy he was last year, okay, fine. You still need more in this lineup for sure. And then now you're mixing and matching in the outfield with a couple of injury-prone guys, platoon guys, some unproven players. Why? Why not just push more in? i know it's a

financial constraint from ownership that's kind of keeping things tighter than they need to be but are they getting better even though they're constantly making moves and and trying to shake things up it's exactly what i was going like i was looking at this death chart and in my mind, like, I know it's not the same death chart as last year, but I can't get any more excited about this death chart than it was last year. I'm just like, it still feels the same. I mean, the names are all different, but it's the same. I don't know.

I I'm like, okay. They still have holes, you know, at the back of that lineup, they still have holes you know at the back of that lineup they still have holes on that infield they now have five to eight million dollars to spend uh on that hole in the infield and the players that are in that grouping are josh donaldson adam frazier who they already tried whit merrifield who's just like a more expensive Adam Frazier Ahmed Rosario who's like I I don't even know how to classify him right now I think he's gonna go to someone who needs a short stop uh but he I don't know if he is a short stop and then like the one I like the most Justin Turner well his predicted average annual value is 1212 million. So, after all

that money cutting, you know, I don't actually see them getting Turner. You just might as well put Josh Donaldson on that team right now and sigh a large sigh. The disappointment for Mariners

fans if they do that is going to be palpable I'm looking at the projections right now that you know the team projections page is sorting by WRC plus Julio is kind of in a class of his own 137 he's the star Ty France who is at driveline this winter is their second best hitter by WRC plus Garver's third at 115, similar to France. JP Crawford at 114. Raleigh at 111. Tons of thump, just a low OBP that sort of drags down his overall offensive profile.

Then it's Ken Zone at 108. Luke Raley at 104. Urias at 104. Hanager at 102. They're deep. I think if we did this exercise this time last year, you'd see numbers that were like two to five points lower at each of those spots. So they're better, but they're better in a way that is so marginal.

Two points of WRC plus better. Our projection is up one and a half wins after all these moves. It's like, okay, there's a lot of effort, but if that's the way you're going to have to operate, I guess that's going to work. You asked me who I liked out of that group. I mean, I picked Canzone over Marlowe, but are you with me on Canzone, or do you prefer Marlowe,

or do you prefer somebody else? Yeah, I like Canzone. I mean, it's just at this point, he's also a left-hander. So you've got Julio, who's not going to be platooned, and then you've got Rayleigh, who is a left-hander. So, you know, if they fully platoon Mitch Hanegar, then Kenzone, you know, there's, I guess, a two-thirds playing time share there for him to pull.

But I don't know if they are going to do that so that leaves ken zone hoping to get 300 plate appearances this year yeah i think the way i would look at it from a drafting early perspective is i'm not drafting dominant ken zone i'm thinking about picking him up during the season when injuries open up more time but that's that's the current way to do it even rayleighaley, I think, is like that for me too. I don't know if I have a lot of interest in Raley, even though there's value in his bat as a part-time guy. He hits the ball hard, and that's great.

But when you look at a 20% swinging strike rate and a 30-plus percent strikeout rate and a fairly robust fly ball rate, then this 330 batting average on balls in play that he had last year sticks out as being primed for regression. And so that's going to push. If he also starts hitting more fly balls or striking out more, both things are possible.

You could really see a guy with a.208 average hitting some jacks, but how many will the stadium take away from him too? I guess Tampa is also a defense-friendly pitching environment, but it doesn't rob homers the same way. It just increases strikeouts and does other things. I like Raley, but he's also 29 and coming off his best season. His career could be short.

Interesting thing too about Raley, 87th percentile in sprint speed. No way. 14 bags last year. No way. A better runner, I didn't realize he had the 14 bags. I do think if you're looking at Raley versus Canzone,

which one is higher in their current pecking order for playing time, it's probably Raley. Yeah. So you have to consider that too if you're eyeballing that and saying who's more likely to get that large side platoon opportunity first? That's where I think that opportunity falls. I guess Raley could.

So France did not have a great year. And so I guess there is a world in which they're all healthy, but France is struggling. He becomes more of a backup. Raley plays first. And Ken Zon plays in the outfield. It's possible. I think that would be better defense.

The other side of this trade, Jose Caballero, that surprising infielder that popped up for the Mariners last year, goes to the Rays. It seems like it's all kind of a glove speed profile. Is there anything in the underlying numbers with the bat that you think made him a good fit for the Rays? I think it's just a

situation of need there. The news on Wanda Franco just continues to get worse. It's just awful all around really. I don't think people should be expecting wanda franco to play major league baseball anytime soon no it doesn't doesn't sound like that's gonna happen ever again based on details that are come out to this point that's

that would be my read on it too and so so Taylor Walls had hip problems last year, and he's on track to be ready for the beginning of the season. But he's also projected to be 10-plus percent worse than league average with the stick. There's some things he's done where you think, well, maybe he could break out. But he's 27 at this point, and he hasn't really done anything exciting.

Caballero is also 27, but he was closer to league average. It's a slightly different sort of package, but in that he doesn't really hit the ball that hard, and he doesn't walk as much as Taylor Walls, but he walks a certain amount. So I think he's the starting shortstop. I think Walls is the utility guy, is where I'm looking at this.

But I don't think that either of them is somebody you really want to roster in most fancy leagues. We saw Oslavius Basabe get a chance last year after Wander was placed on administrative leave, so I think he's still an option for them too. I know Junior Caminero, theoretically, you play him on the left side of the infield.

I just don't think defensively that's where he goes. I don't see that being their solution. He's so young at 19 that maybe they say, we play him at shortstop when he's super young and athletic, and then he's obviously going to move off the position at some point, but ages 20 and 21, we can handle him at short. You know what I mean? So that is a possibility where neither Walls or Caballero,

Basabe's back in the minors, Caballero and Walls are kind of utility guys, and the most often starting infield is walls are kind of utility guys and the most most often starting infield is paredes caminero brandon lowe and uh yandy diaz that is a possibility but i think this trade says to me they wanted to go get a starting shortstop yeah and if you just sort of punt that spot and say, it's all glove. He's our nine hitter. He could steal some bases,

get on base a little bit. We're fine with that. That plays mostly as a monoleague sort of player, right? Caballero in AL only leagues could be fine if the playing time is there. Maybe for the draft and hold purposes, he works there as well if you think that playing time is going to be there.

If you're lucky, maybe you could get a Geraldo Perdomo type season out of him. I think that's sort of like a reasonable roto comp. Like Perdomo, he has good play discipline. And so he might get himself to 15 homers

or whatever just on being like, hey, I only pretty much swing at pitches in the zone. You know what I mean? I have a pretty good approach. Even if the bat speed isn't plus like some of the other things are pretty good but i will have to say that the rays in terms of like a team construction like i know that it's cool uh to prioritize defense up the middle um and you know there are teams that have won world series there are teams that have done really well that do this um but to me we're talking about such zeros offensively at catcher short and center am i being too rough on siri i mean i'm gonna check his page real quick

siri he was better than league average last year. I know he has that thump, but he's projected to be less than league average, and that's how I see him. So I see those three as being pretty big holes in the lineup. So that's three full holes in your lineup. That means that every second or third inning, you're just putting up a zero. I think we talked about it with the Giants at the point last year when it was like Casey Schmidt was up, Luis Matos was up, and Patrick Bailey was up. And, you know, okay, defensively, sure, this is all going to work.

But there were concerns that at least two of those guys weren't going to hit right away and possibly three. least two of those guys weren't going to hit right away and possibly three and yeah it's kind of like you're saying if you have three players in your lineup like that series dangerous because of the power that clearly can can do damage 25 homers last year just 364 plate appearances like one of the most bizarre lines though right like a 267 obp is horrendous 35 k rate with a near 40 o swing like it's a lot like brett phillips in some ways but with the tons of power that he gets to phillips never had power like that in the big leagues right right yeah um you know i i don't know i don't know that um i guess with this you say okay series gonna run in run into 20, 25 homers and Caballero and Walls are going to walk 10% of the time.

So even though they are below average offensively, they will do some things. If you get one walk or one homer out of those three, maybe even two walks and a homer out of those three or two walks and x-rays hit out of those three, maybe even two walks and a homer out of those three, and, you know, or two walks and x-rays hit out of those three and in the average game, then you feel like, well, that's not a complete zero. You know, they helped turn the lineup over.

They, you know, and then defensively they were plus. So I guess that's the thinking. And also, like, if you're a team like the Rays who don't have a lot of money, at some point you have to be like, well, where can we punt something? And just being like, well, we're not going to be able to afford Cody Bellinger or Trey Turner or JT Romuto on the open market, right? So let's just have cheap, young defenders up the middle. I think there's always, you know,

they're probably not done. Cloud hanging over the Rays at any given time when you look at their depth chart. And the same could probably be said of the Mariners for what it's worth, just given how active these teams are. But they made another trade to add an outfielder, this one from the Cardinals. Richie Palacios gets added to the Rays outfield mix.

Andrew Kittredge, a nice get for the St. Louis bullpen. We'll start with the Palacios side of this. Palacios, I'm going to ask kind of the same question I asked with Caballero, knowing I'm going to get a pretty different answer because you can see some of the similarities in Palacios approach and tools that make you understand how he fits their mold. You pull the ball in the air. That alone could give him some value. You could see him as a big side platoon guy potentially too, right?

I mean, that's where I think Richie Palacios could be pretty fun. But I also wonder when you start to look at the outfielders. They've piled up. You bring back Sear. You get a lot from Lowe in a platoon role last year. You get Johnny DeLuca back as part of the trade. You made with the Rays. That sent Glass now to Los Angeles. Now you've got Palacios.

Does this open the door for Randy Orozarena. To get flipped. Because that was rumored. As a possibility for. Most of the winter. And now it kind of feels like we're getting closer to them having enough other outfielders where they could actually do it. Yeah, that has been so long the rumor that I've almost sort of given up on it. I think in terms of depth charting, you know, Harold Ramirez becomes

a little bit redundant in certain ways because when I look at Richie Palacios and what he can do, a lot of it looks similar to Harold Ramirez. Not going to walk a lot, makes a lot of contact, hits, you know, just enough, hard enough, you know, though Harold Ramirez hits not going to walk a lot, makes a lot of contact, hits just enough, hard enough, although Harold Ramirez hits the ball harder than Palacios right now, but maybe Palacios can kind of grow into a Harold Ramirez type, and then Palacios is going to have better glove, because Harold Ramirez is already moving to DH. I could see Palacios putting some pressure on Harold Ramirez's bat if they don't make a Rosarena trade.

If they do make a Rosarena trade, I would assume that they would want an infielder and maybe a shortstop. I think the Caballero trade says a Rosarena's in Tampa for another year. They need him as they're currently built

because he's a huge, huge part of what they're going to do for run production. And I think part of the why did they make these moves, what's going on, Caballero still has three option years left. According to Roster Resource, Luke Raley has zero. Richie Palacios has one option left. They love that flexibility. That's a huge part of it. As far as Kittredge goes,

and thinking about this Cardinals bullpen, how do you see him fitting into their late inning mix? I think a big question is just how healthy he is. We've seen his fastball velo kind of jump around a little bit. If he's throwing 96s and 97s, if he's striking out, like he got 16% whiffs in 2021. That was a really nice year.

But the strikeouts have really fallen since then. But if he's doing sort of vintage Kittredge, I think he can push into setup role right in the back there but um i do think for it's still ryan helsley is the closer gallegos and jj romero are the setup men and kittredge is uh a wild card maybe for them yeah more of a bridge guy to the ninth inning as opposed to someone that's going to compete for that role because Brian Helsley has that job so long as he is healthy. Oh, one last thing on Palacios too.

If you had to pick one just for straight up 5x5 value in 2024, Palacios versus Luke Raley with the Rays moving on from Raley and Palacios sort of taking his place in that Rays roster, who do you think is actually the better 5x5 player this year? I'm going on from Raley and Palacios sort of taking his place on that Rays roster, who do you think is actually the better 5x5 player this year? I'm going to take Raley. I know that there's some risk going on to a new team, going into that hitting environment.

But right now, Palacios is kind of in that Manny Margot-ish territory for me where if he gets 375 played appearances, he's going to be useless in most leagues. I am cautiously taking Palacios, which is just...

You like that he can steal. Yeah, he can run a little bit. I think there's just a few more ways, just as many ways for Raley's playing time to be a little bit of a problem. Even though Palacios has those options left, we only saw him for 32 games at the Cardinals, popped the six homers, had a couple of steals, put together a nice line at AAA. I don't think he's gonna hit the ball on the ground as much as he did in his brief time in the big leagues. Overtime, I think he's more of a 45% ground ball rate guy instead of a 52-53% ground ball rate sort of player. That's mostly because he's demonstrated those ground ball rates in the minors. I think it's important. There's been some research that was put out there and I wish I could

attribute it right but I saw some interesting research about how often young players change their ground ball rates and it's not that often but his demonstrated ground ball rate in the minors is different than what he's done in the majors and I don't think 225 plate appearances into a major league experience you can quite say oh yeah he has a ground ball problem

and you look back at his plate skills good really everywhere he's been going all the way back to his time in the guardians organization a few years ago he can walk doesn't strike out a lot doesn't chase it's a lot of things that richie palacios does well i think he's going to find a surprising amount of playing time after this move to tampa bay let's talk about the Mets. The Mets are getting on the board. They're acting a little bit like the Giants right now, which isn't a total shock just given what they started to do at the trade deadline a few months back. Sean Minaya signed a two-year deal with the Mets over the weekend. It does have an opt-out after this season, so if he pitches well, there's

a very good chance we're talking about him either getting a multi-year deal somewhere else or maybe getting some kind of extension with the Mets. And Minaya has spent most of his career pitching in very pitcher-friendly environments, so that continues. The thing I'm wondering about is just whether we see him get regular usage again

because the way the Giants used him was pretty frustrating throughout last season. He made 37 total appearances, but only 10 came as an actual starter. Yeah, it was frustrating to all involved, I think. But, you know, Mania was changing. One thing that he did in the offseason was add Velo at driveline. This is first real foray into having arm care routines like that and to into weighted balls and stuff like

that so he showed the velo boost and then halfway through the season he he kind of went from a regular slider to a sweeping slider to a sweeper and that's that coincided with you know more of his starts more of his good run and I think that's's what the Mets are betting on. I was thinking to myself, oh, it's kind of weird that, you know, here's a guy who threw a sweeper as a left-hander and, you know, and got better. Sweepers have bad platoon splits. So I was thinking, well, isn't he just seeding a big platoon split on that slider to to all the

righties he's facing but the old slider had a 500 plus slugging percentage against it in the first couple months of the season and even if you look against right handers the sweeper had a 208 slugging so yes the sweeper was worse against righties than it was against lefties but it was overall such a better pitch that it didn't matter that the platoon split was there so i think that you have to think that this sweeper is a good thing for sean mania and a good thing for the mets and that he's the mets also need him to be a starting pitcher I don't see them having the types of Jake Junis types of pitchers unless they're going to use Tyler McGill in options left,

and so does David Peterson. I kind of feel like they're going to keep their six starters in the minors. So you're depending on Joey Lucchese. If you think that Sean Mania is going to be a guy that pitches three innings at a time. You're thinking Joey Lucchese comes in behind him, and I wouldn't want to depend on Joey Lucchese. I think Sean Mania is going to be a regular pitcher.

I think he's going to throw 160 innings, and it's going to be like a 3-7-5, 3-8 type ERA, and he's going to be useful for the Mets and in a lot of fantasy situations. But his changeup's not that good, and he's just never really demonstrated for a full season the kind of peripherals that I'd want out of a top-end pitcher, if you know what I mean. I wonder if we can more realistically hope for 2021 as a do-over again.

A 391 ERA, a 123 whip. That was his final year with the A's. Just over a strikeout per inning. That would play. I think the Mets would be pretty happy with that if you told them that's what they signed on for. That'd probably be enough to get him his opt-out exercise, too, and get him more money next winter. But the Velo bump makes him pretty interesting to me right now. Outside the top 300 overall pretty consistently.

Even if he creeps up a couple of rounds, I think he could do pretty well there. In leagues where you just want to buy innings, like in a draft and hold or something, I think he's pretty useful. Yeah, I think... So I was looking back. We ran a survey last year to look at the types of leagues

that our listeners play in, and about 90% of the leagues that our listeners play in. And about 90% of the leagues that our listeners play in are 12 teams or smaller. And I think Sean Bonilla in New York, in that park, is still actually 12-team viable. He'd be one of your last pitchers on the roster. Might be a guy you cut and pick up a couple of times, but I think he actually has enough in this situation

where you would actually consider him in that format. Yeah, that's pretty good he landed a good spot for his skills they've also got Harrison Bader there as a signing he got about the same deal as Kevin Kiermaier which is what I expected and in fact you know he and Kevin Kiermaier represented a very rare thing in that you can improve your centerfield defense in the free agent market. It's kind of rare to be able to improve defense up the middle at center short or catcher in free agency. I think it's super rare. I think they took that chance because Brandon Nimmo for me profiles a little better defensively in the corner outfield and with a one-year deal they're still in on the

Soto sweepstakes next year if they want to be and so you know the only people signed for too long in that outfield is basically Nemo because Stanley Marte is a free agent in 2026. That's not actually too long of a deal right now. I think Vader is a good stopgap situation

for them. They're in a weird place as an organization. I read them as sort of treading water. They want to be competitive because it's still an expensive roster. It's still a premium location in terms of New York and the NL East. They want, they want to do their best,

but I also see them kind of wanting to bring up some of these young players that'll allow them to sign the Sotos, basically. And so I kind of see this year as a little bit of treading water for the Mets. Pretty easy for them, I think, to take most of what they have, maybe add one or two more small pieces and say, you know what, we're good enough to make the playoffs. And then if things are tracking that way, we can certainly add some payroll midseason, which opens up tons of possibilities for you to get upgrades. And if we're not good, we've still got some guys.

Pete Alonzo will be a free agent after the 2024 season. Marte will be a guy that if he's healthy, you could probably flip to a contender. You'll have some bullpen pieces. You'll have some starters that are back-end type guys'll move just just sell in july and keep rebooting like it's not it's not a big deal like they can they can play the middle the way they're set up right now and the moves they're making are kind of setting them up to do that pretty effectively looking at the way the depth chart moves around this puts jeff mcneil really back in that infield group instead of being in part of the corner outfield mix because with nimmo with nim, you expect him to play pretty much every day.

So as long as Bader's healthy, that's sort of the key, right? That's been every conversation we've ever had about Harrison Bader was, well, maybe if he stays healthy and maybe if he takes all of his skills from his best years and smushes them together, it's a lot of maybes. It's a lot of maybes. I think when you look at Bader from a skills perspective, even if he stayed healthy for 600 plate appearances, which I don't think he will, it's like a 10 homer, 30 steal profile with a low average, low OBP. It's fine.

It's okay, but it's more of a deeper league sort of player whose glove carries the playing time. He was better when he was kind of a patient, a guy who walked and struck out and hit for more power i mean he was better like the numbers don't lie he was above uh average with the stick when he did that when he became this more aggressive contact uh you know searching um you know softer hitting version of himself he hasn't't been an above league average stick

with that profile. So I would just show him the numbers if I was his hitting coach and being like, why don't we hit for power, dude? Well, now he's at a park that makes it a little more difficult. Yeah, it does. That's the downside.

That's one of the things I would have showed him in New York, I guess. At the other New York. Yes, during his time there. Yeah, that would have been optimal to try and work it in. Then you mentioned it sort of in passing. Kevin Kiermaier goes back to the Blue Jays. They also added Isaiah Kiner-Falefa.

It's amazing those two signings didn't get quite as much attention as the possibility of adding Shohei Otani. They did get some attention, Just more of the negative sort. I mean, what would you do if you were trying to continue making this window as productive as it can be? What would be the move right now with the players currently off the board? I don't know. I'm a little worried that Cody Bellinger is a trap in terms of how much money he wants and we talked about his skill set and all that. But in some ways

it makes the most sense for them because Varshow is a good defender, a really good defender and center. You don't necessarily need the defense up the middle. So if you get Bellinger, you have two center fielder types, at least in the very short-term future. And you get more offense, I would assume, from Bellinger than Kiermaier and Kainer-Falefa. Sometimes I think that people get really excited about things like,

oh, roster flexibility. Let's have backups at every position on the roster. And then you kind of forget you already have that in Santiago Espinal. So why do you need to double that up? This team, to me, seems like it's a team that could use another star you know and whether or not you get that's why they were so in deep on the otani deal it's like

yeah another star is is where it's at right now the fifth and sixth starters are manoa and titeman uh you know that's fine you know they're before Kainer-Falefa, their backup everywhere was Espinel. That's fine. Before Kiermaier, their center fielder was Varshow. That's fine. Why not, you know, get a bigger name if you already had that money, you know, sort of thought about for Otani? So maybe they just didn't like what's out there.

Maybe they're still going to sign Chapman. It does seem like they have one more roof in their holster, but it's not obvious where it's going to be now that they've kind of filled the depth chart. What if they do sign Chapman? Does that mean they have to release Biggio? Or Biggio becomes an outfielder? It starts to actually become like a crowded depth chart if you do that, right?

Like, don't they start, you start being like, well, okay, on our 26-man roster, who's on there? Like, they won't keep a DH then. They got a handful of guys that still have options like davis schneider options biggio options i'm surprised he still has he has an option it says he has three on roster resource which is kind of surprising i guess what he came up with he was productive and he never went he never really went down yeah but 28 isn't there a moment where um you might use yeah literally have options, but you can refuse them?

Yeah, if you get enough service time, you can refuse them. You've got Spencer Horowitz. You've got Espinel has options. You've got a few guys in that mix that you could send down. I guess if you sign Chapman, you push Kainer Falefa to fourth outfielder type, and you don't keep a regular DH, I think that's how you can make this roster work.

Yeah. I don't know. I want to see them do something splashy because they've got too many Frankenstein players on the roster, too many spots that they're trying to mix and match and play that flexibility game with, as you said a few moments ago. A few other recent moves and notes getting caught up on the last couple of weeks.

I'm going to run through these. Let me know if these have any interest to you whatsoever. How about Cody Morris to the Yankees for Estevan Floreal? No, I don't care. Floreal was like on waivers. They could have just claimed him. I couldn't believe

that they wanted Floreal, but then they didn't end up just keeping and playing Will Benson. Obviously, the worst decision was seemingly trading Nolan Jones, given what Nolan Jones did in Colorado last year. I can't quite figure out what the Guardians

like in hitters. What their actual plan really is there. Morris getting a fresh start is fine. I just want to see him stay healthy because I think he could at least be a pretty good reliever. Jake Lamb gets a NRI invite with the Pirates. It just seems like he's more of an organizational backup type player at this stage of his career.

Shelby Miller to the Tigers. You got Luis Patino to the Padres. Anything with either of those moves? the Tigers, you've got Luis Patino to the Padres. Anything with either of those moves? Miller has popped in small samples as being a decent reliever, and I would say that there's some opportunity in that bullpen. Yeah, that's a great way to sum up the Tigers' bullpen right now.

Opportunities available. High leverage opportunities are available. It's not impossible that he becomes the closer. He could get saves. I don't know if I'd project more than like 8 to 10 right now, but who else in that bullpen would you project 8 to 10 saves for? Yeah, Foley, Vest, Chafin's back there, Miguel Diaz, Brischke. I guess Lang is the guy, but Lang last year had a 16%

walk rate. That's pretty large. I kind of want to see what Bo Brischke does as a full season reliever. I think he might be pretty good out of the pen. So maybe there's the other sleeper for the Tigers relief core. But yeah, Shelby Miller, non-zero chance of being the consistent

closer for an improving Tigers team based on the way that depth chart is built right now. Austin Nola goes to the Brewers with an NRI. I mean, I think the Brewers' long-standing ability to make catchers better defensively makes Nola kind of interesting, but he's a backup

there as William Contreras goes. It's interesting also that Eric Haas is there. That's a guy that had been being moved off of catcher. So if they can improve his defense, they might even have a surplus. Yeah. Francisco Mejia and Zach Plesak end up with the Angels. Okay. That's a fact. That is something that happened i have no no commentary on this

chris flexin brett phillips and martin maldonado among the recent additions by the white socks oh man if you if you think that the tigers bullpen has some opportunity the white socks seem to embody that as a team ethos. I mean, you've got, I think, shortstop is fully open. Second base is fully open. I know there's people on top of those depth charts, but I would say that right field is fully open. I saw an interesting debate happening in the White Sox Twitter about Oscar Colas, who's 25.

Yes, that's okay. And a left-hander and has had some really good minor league numbers, but has also given us a fairly good look at the major leagues and has shown us not like really poor contact ability. That's something you can tell in smaller samples. You know know doesn't turn his his raw power into game power because he hits too many grounders and and poor defense so maybe the poor defense is lying to us in a small sample

but I don't think he's gonna be much better than league average at best and so even his spot on the depth chart I think is attainable for somebody so yeah I think Oscar Colas, Nicky Lopez, and Paul DeYoung are the starters but if you're in a keeper league or a real deep league like get to know the people underneath them because all three of those guys are not so great I think obviously the big name is Colson Montgomery. My kid has been reading the Baseball America magazine that we get and apparently there

was a Corey Seeger comparison in there somewhere. He's very excited about Colson Montgomery. I'm excited about Colson Montgomery too, so at least two of us within the Rates and Barrels podcast family excited about Colson Montgomery too. So at least two of us within the Rates and Barrels podcast family. Excited about that.

Yeah, the White Sox, I think they keep adding players that actually bring their war down. Usually any move you make just moves you up the chart. And I swear they've dropped a spot or two. And it's not because the teams below them added anybody. It's because the guys they're adding are negative players or less valuable than the previous options that were on that depth chart. The three names that I gave you are projected for combined.

Oh, this is going to be good. Three players projected for a combined one win. One. Above replacement. Yeah. know average would be six well hey they're doing things their way so i uh i think it's going to be a rough year uh on on the south side of chicago i think most people expect it to be like what are you excited about well you could watch louise robert and the dylan's trade yeah we. Yeah, we'll see what that brings, right? I was not in on Dylan Cease the year he broke out,

so I was definitely not in on Dylan Cease last year when he came kind of crashing back to earth. I don't know how excited I'd be. This is the year to be in on him. You think this is the year to be back in? Yeah, I think so. Or for me, in for the first time? Yeah, yeah.

I'm going to sell you on him. He's the league leader in swords, a new stat on Baseball Savant. Is that from the Pitching Ninja, like the actual hitter getting into a sword position? Yeah, it's pitches on which the batter swings at something that's in the dirt. You know, like swings at them. It does an awful swing. So, yeah, the sword.

Ugly swings-induced swords. Love it. Yeah. So, I mean, I just think he's a high-stuff guy, real low command. But given all that that we talk about are we in on Edward Cabrera or not this year and Edward Cabrera is like 15% walk rate

sometimes you just gotta look at strikeouts and walks and be like Cease struck out basically over the last three years Cease has struck out 30% of the batters he's seen and walked 10% that's really good it's more like a right handed Snell profile yes struck out 30% of the batters he's seen and walked 10%. That's really good.

Yeah, it's more like a right-handed Snell profile. Yes, there you go. That's a really good one. Yeah. So I'm in. I think this will be a rebound season for him. One asterisk is I kind of want to know where he's going. I just... You know, a lot of walks in the AL East in Yankee stadium.

Fenway. Yeah. But those aren't the only places he's rumored on going. So this is true. Last little bit of news as we wrap up things here, a Starling Marte, who I think came up in the conversation earlier has been playing in the Dominican winter league.

So some good news there for up in the conversation earlier, has been playing in the Dominican Winter League, so some good news there for him on the health front as he tries to put together a healthier campaign in 2024. And we didn't talk about them as we went by, but Adrian Hauser and Tyrone Taylor were acquired by the Mets. Coleman Crow, an injured minor league pitcher, went back to the Brewers in that one,

so that looked like a salary dump where the Mets get some kind of rotation insurance policy in Hauser, maybe their number five starter, and a guy like Tyrone Taylor who could actually play as much as Bader and possibly out-hit Bader. That's well within the range of outcomes for him. I think just based on what he's done as more of a part-time guy in Milwaukee. Better than DJ Stewart, like a good fourth outfielder.

Yeah, probably better than DJ Stewart. DJ Stewart's a a good fourth outfielder. Probably better than DJ Stewart. DJ Stewart's a little bit interesting for deep, deep leagues. I think they're going to be battling a little bit for playing time. And then as the season goes on, if the Mets are bad, they may both lose out playing time to Vientos. Vientos is just tough because I don't know if he has a defensive position where he's even really passable at the big league level. I think that's going to work really hard against them.

He has to hit a lot to force the issue with his bat. We are going to go on our way out the door. A reminder, if you don't have a subscription to The Athletic, you can get one for $2 a month for the first year. Theathletic.com slash rates and barrels will bring you to that offer. On Twitter, you can find Eno at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Ryper. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Wednesday.

Thanks for listening. Thank you.