Rates & Barrels - A Juan Soto Deal Nears Completion, Yamamoto's Market, and the Alex Verdugo Trade w/Ken Rosenthal

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

Ken Rosenthal joins Eno and DVR to discuss the latest on a potential deal that will send Juan Soto to the Yankees, Yoshinobu Yamamoto's soaring price in free agency, Alex Verdugo's move to the Bronx, and the potential impact of RSN uncertainty on spending this winter.  Rundown 0:22 Is a Juan Soto Deal Between the Yankees and Padres Nearly Done? 3:38 Did the Yankees Acquire Alex Verdugo to Keep Him, or Deal Him? 4:46 Yoshinobu Yamamoto's Soaring Market 7:25 Slow Market Causes, Beyond Ohtani? 11:33 Erick Fedde Lands with the White Sox 14:17 Fallout in Boston From the Alex Verdugo Trade 17:41 Craig Kimbrel to the Orioles 24:17 Other Notes From Nashville 31:02 Jackson Holliday's Shot at the Opening Day Roster Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Ken on Twitter: @Ken_Rosenthal e-mail: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is December 6th, day three of the winter meetings in Nashville. Things are heating up, so we brought on Ken Rosenthal, senior baseball writer here at The Athletic. Ken, are we getting a Juan Soto deal done today? It just sounds like it. And every indication is that they're near the finish line. So I would expect by the time people hear this, that Juan Soto will either be a Yankee or be real close to being a Yankee.

Actually, he's real close to being a Yankee as we speak. We've been wondering, is there another team that's even been close the last few days? Or has it really just been two teams that really need each other as you wrote about earlier in the week? It sounds like it's more that, that these two teams need each other. The Padres have needed to do this for financial reasons and to get pitching back and to create the financial flexibility to get more pitching. And for the Yankees perspective, they need to go back into shock and awe mode and get some stars. And Juan Soto is one of the maybe biggest five stars in the game. So it will satisfy them as well.

Obviously we're not sure yet on the return and what this is going to look like in total, but Juan Soto in Yankee Stadium, you know, I think that's a pretty good thing. Yeah, I mean, he does go awful a lot, but when he pulls it, it's just going to go right out of that short porch. Plus that approach with Judge. Judge is always going to have people on.

Soto is going to have people on. Those are two, like, OBP monsters. You know, it's going to be great for the rest of the lineup. I think it's just interesting that they are bidding against themselves. One thing that is really important in this game is pitching depth. Yet, you're

the Yankees. You need to go to shock. Maybe get the Yamamoto or whatever. Get the big piece on top. You still need to get through the season. You need these buritos and you need these Vasquez's. And if you give up too many of them in one deal that you might be bidding against yourself, that's why it's taking a little bit of time. They were insisting that they were not going to do King and Thorpe in this deal.

It looks like, as we speak here, they are doing King and Thorpe in this deal, as well as perhaps vasquez and brito and that's that's where i might be trying to draw a line a little bit is like well we're giving you a major league piece and we're giving you one of our better pitching prospects i don't know if we can also give you both of our number six number five six starters you know so maybe they're trying to keep one of brito and vasquez and that's the last little bit there and again we don't know We don't know exactly what is entailed here. And if there are any hitting

prospects in it. Right. And what they're getting back. We don't know. It might be more than Soto and perhaps Trent Grisham who could still be part of this. Maybe they get a young player or two back. Who knows how big this thing might be. They've also been rumored to try and be shopping Cronenworth

to save that money. That's right. And Higashioka has been reported to be going back to the Padres. So we're throwing out a lot of names here. We're not giving you a lot of definition. But it's going to be really interesting to see the final version because as Eno says, yeah, pitching depth is like number one right now. It's the thing you need most just to get through. And the Yankees in this deal are

certainly going to give up some of that. Yeah. And late career veterans are going 12, 13 million for even one year deals right now. So it's expensive to backfill those spots if you don't have organizational guys filling the back end rotation depth spots. Alex Verdugo, is he staying with the Yankees or is he possibly part of a deal like this? Because usually a lefty in Yankee Stadium, we're excited. Verdugo's approach is not as pull happy as most lefties and doesn't seem like he will necessarily take advantage of that ballpark the way a typical lefty would. Does sound like he's staying. And the idea is going to be from everything we're hearing, Soto, Judge, Verdugo, which is an interesting group, obviously. Not the best defensive athlete.

Not the best defensive athlete. Verdugo is good defensively. Actually, maybe one of the worst out there. Well, Judge and center is a question in its own. But Soto's been a bit of a problem defensively. Soto's been terrible. Okay, you said it. He has been.

He's declined in that area. Verdugo is an interesting guy because he's never hit more than 13 home runs in a season. And yet, he's a corner outfielder. Corner outfielders generally hit a lot of home runs. He's a spray hitter, gets on base, puts the ball in play. Which they need. Yeah, they can't all be sluggers and strike out. It's a little bit more like a DJ LeMayhew offensive profile from the left side.

That's what it looks like to me when I look at it. That's a good call. Yoshinobu Yamamoto. We've seen 10 years, $300 million thrown out there as a possibility. What do you think about that as a guy who hasn't thrown a pitch in Major League Baseball yet? Well, Jackson Churya

just got $82 million. He hasn't played a single game in Major League Baseball. Yamamoto is a three-time Japanese version of the Cy Young winner and three-time MVP. He is the most dominant pitcher in Japan right now. Obviously, that is a huge number. It's funny to

me that initially we were talking about $200 million as the floor. That has gone up. I don't know if he gets $300 million, but because he is 25, that's the key driver here. 10 years, $30 million AV, that's 300. It's not that crazy.

And there are so many teams that want him. It seems like he is going to get that. Will Salmon of our staff today reported that Steve Cohen, the Mets owner, was in Japan last week to meet with Yamamoto. When the Yankees read that, they're probably going to freak out. The Dodgers, the Giants, seemingly every big market team wants in and for obvious reasons. Jason Stark had a great piece about people being nervous. Ben Charrington was quoted in that being like, well, we have pitch grades now. We have biomechanical analysis we can do even off of video. We are able to know a lot more about the underlying processes.

I've got a number of stuff plus, and Yamamoto's splitter by stuff plus would be the best among starters in baseball. His fastball would be among the top 10, and his curveball would be among the top 10. So that's three pitches that are really outstanding but have you have you you know and yet in jason's excellent piece there's some nervousness maybe about uh about like 10 years for a pitcher maybe a smaller pitcher have you heard any nervousness too i've heard some nervousness and perhaps from rival agents who have their own pitching clients to push

he is smaller and there is historic scouting bias against small right-handers even though this game has produced tim hudson and pedro martinez and a host of others spencer strider is a pretty good small right-hander marcus stroman sunny Sonny Gray. I can go on and on. But that bias, that concern does exist. And I guess Yamamoto is fairly slight as well. So coming into this game in the major leagues, sure, there are adjustments to be made. There are differences, but the teams are so smart. You know this. They wouldn't be so feverish about him if they didn't think he was the real thing. be so feverish about him if they didn't think he was the real thing. How much do you attribute the quiet nature of this meetings to Otani?

Is it somewhat Otani, mostly Otani, entirely Otani? Because I can understand how some of the top end free agents would be fallback options for the teams that miss out. But a lot of mid-tier guys could go somewhere and it doesn't really matter what happens with Otani in those cases. It's not entirely Otani. And it's funny, I was just talking with the GM this morning and he said to me, it's not all Otani because it's not a great free agent class and you have a number of players from Asia being posted at different times. So there are all these different things taking place place and as the example he used for it not being a free agent class he said the second best hitter was a guy who was one of the worst best player but one of the worst players in baseball a couple

years ago cody yeah uh the third best hitter is matt chapman who was really only a good hitter in april last year this is after otani so otani chapman iman, I'm sorry, Otani, Bellinger, Chapman. And the best hitter just had basically elbow surgery. Right. So it all kind of fits, but at the same time, Otani does affect a lot more than we would think. And when you said, sure,

he affects the top guys, but what about the middle tier guys? I'm even hearing from the agents of certain relievers that because their teams are waiting to see what happens here, they're not sure what they're going to have to spend for that second tier, third baseman. It's the same kind of thing. It's just a trickle-down effect. So a lot of it is that, and at the same time,

Otani is under no obligation to sign here. He's under no obligation to sign by December 31st, January 31st. He can sign whenever he wants. The reality of the market is, though, that once he goes, things will start to happen. What about the TV situation? I know that's got to be a damper on this, too. And I've been trying to talk to some executives about you know first of all no executive likes uncertainty and the tv situation is an uncertain situation for 10 11 teams out

there so i think that's got to be a damper on like what we're seeing out of seattle has to be related to that i mean they basically paid a young player to get money off of their roster um and so uh i i think that's got to be part of it. But I'm also asking them, well, how much do you think you'll lose? Because it's not like they'll go from, you know, a $100 million contract or $60 million contract to zero because baseball has said we will step in. They've already done this for the Dambrobacks, produce and sell.

So I've been trying to get a sense of what that will bring in, and I'm hearing 60, 80%, they think. Have you engaged anybody on that level? I haven't gotten that deeply into it, but it's definitely a damper. It's a number and it's definitely a damper. It's Texas, it's Minnesota, it's Cleveland, perhaps Seattle as well. Seattle's ownership doesn't need an excuse not to spend. They seem to find them rather quickly. So there's no doubt that that has had a chilling effect on those teams.

Now, how much they'll get back really depends on the direction they take. If they go direct consumer and start selling subscriptions, the way it's been explained to me is it'll never match what they were getting from the RSNs. Because we were being subsidized by people who weren't even watching exactly right so i can't say for sure what effect it's going to have and these are still businesses that are doing rather well but you're right the uncertainty is what drives the owners crazy and i know texas in particular ray davis just won a world series they should be doing great, but he's nervous because they were making 111 million a year from this thing.

And one of the better deals was one of the better deals. And now it's up in the air. Yeah. And I thought the Rangers all along that Josh Hader to the Rangers makes all the sense in the world. I thought they were going to be on a tiny big and they might've been otherwise. Yeah.

That's really unfortunate. Ken, we appreciate your time and your insight today and they might've been otherwise. Yeah. That's really unfortunate. Ken, we appreciate your time and your insight today and look forward to catch up again soon. Thanks Derek. Appreciate it. Thanks for coming on. Thanks dude.

All right. You know, let's talk about some of the other moves that have gone down here in the last couple of days since we last recorded Eric Fetty to the white socks. It was a name that started to pop up a lot earlier in the week. Two years, $15 million. What changed during his time in the KBO? He's not the same pitcher he was when he left.

Few pitchers are. Apparently, this is interesting to me, Brian Bannister, who is the director of pitching or some such role for the Red Sox now, I believe. And Ethan Katz, who is the pitching coach for the white socks were in a facility with Logan Webb and Eric Fetty before this KBO season and watched Eric Fetty learn Logan Webb's sweeper and his split finger change up.

And that's what he added to his arsenal. So those two had a front row seat to seeing it. They saw probably the movement numbers, probably something they can also get from KBO partners. So they know that this is a different picture. Now you could probably give Eric Fetty a beep B minus version of Logan Webb's split change and split and sweeper and have him not be that great. That's how bad Eric Fetty was before.

I think Eric Fetty was the kind of person that based on what was happening as a pro, he would go into an offseason and say, I got to just do something completely different. None of this is working right now. It's a former first round pick and a guy that had Tommy John coming out of college that would have been drafted even earlier if he was healthy in that draft class. We also know Washington isn't necessarily the best place for a pitcher to grow. So I think as far as opportunities go, this is a guy that had a two ERA, a 0.95 whip, 209 strikeouts and 180 in a third innings in the KBO.

Projections coming back in are still lukewarm because everything we've baked in from the big leagues was so bad. But we've seen Merrill Kelly come back and have a lot of success. We've seen even someone like Colin Ray, different guys that come in and they're good innings eaters. At the very least, I think he could be a back-end starter. But this is a smart flyer for the White Sox, and they were far from the only team interested. Yeah, I mean, I just checked his Stuff Plus on his four-seam fastball.

It was a 52. How is that possible? So still a bad fastball, but maybe with a bunch of other pitches. I think it makes sense for the White Sox to do this. You get like a fourth or fifth starter. That's fourth or fifth starter money. And then there's a little bit of upside. Maybe he did shape his fastballs a little bit too, or maybe he got a little below bumper, you know, maybe he's just going to be a credible dude for two and 15. That's worth it for them. So we talked about Alex Verdugo briefly with

Ken Rosenthal and Verdugo to the Yankees was weird because he got there by way of the Red Sox. Those teams obviously don't trade very often. We talked a little bit about the approach and thinking about Aaron Judge in center field, certainly a slight downgrade to the overall outfield defense based on where things are going right now. A little more wear and tear on Judge's legs, which could be a concern more long-term than short-term. I actually think one of the more interesting parts of the Verdugo trade is the opportunity it opens up playing time-wise for players still in Boston. Saddam Raffaella and William Abreu could actually coexist more easily in an outfield in Boston where Alex Verdugo is no longer part of the equation, in part because the three players

that came back in this trade, Richard Fitz, Greg Weissert, and Nicholas Judas, they're all pitchers. So they didn't bring anybody back to really clutter up that playing time situation. Yeah, I personally am not sure that Jaron Duren is a center fielder. And so this makes a lot of sense. Now Duren can be a – he's going to be okay defensively in the corner. There's not as much pressure on his glove anymore. Abreu himself does not have the best glove and it's more of a hit first uh profile but Rafaela has plus defense either at short or in center and this is uh basically I think brings the floor up on his playing time this year I think he's assured of near full playing time because

he's got different opportunities towards uh towards that. But I'm interested, you know, if the Richard fits in, in Boston, I think it's going to happen because he has a very interesting type of, of pitches. He's got a cut ride fastball. That's something that the Cubs really like. It's a, it's an interesting profile that seems to be doing well across baseball where it's a kind of a four seam, uh, but it doesn't have quite the ride of a regular four seam, but it also has, doesn't have any of the horizontal movement. It's kind of a, a kind of

a straightish fastball that hitters aren't used to. He also has a slider that has lift. It doesn't drop. So, uh, this is like kind of a true sweeper where this is a horizontal, you know, pitch that does not drop. It's an interesting profile that has led to a lot of whiffs in the zone from what I've seen. So I think that he's the, the prize of the package.

Why cert had really nice stuff, plus numbers in triple a, but I checked 18 pitches per appearance. I don't even think that's, uh, he's not in that class. They've got a class of kind of reliever starters. Uh, when it comes to, uh,

cutter Crawford, Tanner Houck, uh, Garrett Whitlock, they've got a lot of guys who are in between starting and relieving. I think why sort of as a reliever, maybe that allows them to start Whitlock. Maybe it just gives them depth,

whatever it is. They needed arms. I just talked to Craig Breslow about how much work they need to do, not only on acquiring Major League arms that were ready to go, but on pitching development and what that's going to look like with Boston.

So I think that this is step one of a process that's turned the pitching around in the Major League quickly while underneath we are changing processes that help develop our own pitchers better. Yeah, absolutely. I think Weissert's kind of a career reliever in the minor leagues, so it makes sense. He'll just be part of that bullpen mix, but a lot of guys that are kind of in that mix to compete for a back-end rotation spot, depending on the other additions the Red Sox make over the

course of the winter. Staying in the AL East, Craig Kimbrell nearing a deal with the Orioles. At last glance, it wasn't official yet. It makes a lot of sense when you consider that Felix Batista is recovering from Tommy John surgery. He's out for 2024. Orioles, of course, had a ton of success in 2023, spending a little more than usual. Kimbrell, I feel like Kimbrell gets a little bit of a bad rap in part because he's had some blowups on big stages in the postseason in recent years, but he's still a good reliever. He's not the elite reliever that was on more of a clear Hall of Fame trajectory at the beginning of his career, but he's still probably a top 25, top 30 reliever in the game at this stage of his career. I hate to bring out the stuff plus numbers again, but for relievers, they're very powerful because you're tied to your

stuff as a reliever. That's all you've got. You've got your stuff. He was still top 20. I think that one of the flaws, one of the reasons we've seen the blowups, they've been homers. He's going to go from a park that was seventh friendliest for homers to a park that since they've put up Mount Baltimore, has been more of a 25th best place to hit homers. So I think that'll be a good mix with his flaws. And also, it's probably going to be a short-term deal.

That's where he is in his career right now, is taking one and two-year deals to keep the average annual value high. And that just fits what the Orioles need because, you know, Felix is going to be back. You're going to hear that sound from the wire and King Felix is going to come sauntering out of the bullpen again. And they've got some other pieces in Cano, but, you know, they needed another end piece. And I think this is a good idea. Yeah, it was something that we thought they were going to do even more aggressively at the trade deadline this year, and not surprised to see them spending a bit on relief help this winter.

Other relievers on the move, we've got Kirby Yates, the Rangers, Luis Garcia to the Angels. Probably not a lot of fantasy-related implications with those because those are more like holds leagues towards the players. Yates in particular with the Rangers being on a good team, that's another good landing spot for him. There's some question about who the closer is in Texas. I don't know that I'd put Yates as the primary candidate for that,

but in deeper leagues, he might be the guy who gets some saves. I think I still, of their current options, prefer LeClerc to Yates, but I think there are some intriguing names out there that could end up being big upgrades. I've seen LeClerc go up and down over his career. Yeah, he's got a little bit of that too. There were some wobbly outings in the playoffs that made me wonder if he's really their guy. You heard it when we were talking with Ken. I think that in another year, in a different TV situation,

they would have gone and shopped at the top end of the market in Texas. Yeah, and Josh Hader is still available, but it just seems less likely that the Rangers are going to pursue him than we might have thought even a month or so ago. We do know where Marco Gonzalez is probably pitching in 2024. It was made very clear after his involvement in the trade between the Mariners and Braves that he was not going to stay in Atlanta. He is now in Pittsburgh, a player to be named later, going to Atlanta.

Cash going with Marco Gonzalez to the Pirates. I imagine, health permitting, Marco Gonzalez is just a good back-end starter for them. He lands in a decent park, so that's at least a solid landing spot for him to chew up some innings. Wow, on the depth chart on Fangraphs right now, Marco Gonzalez is second in the rotation. This is not necessarily about when you've got Luis Ortiz, who needs to figure some stuff out. Quinn Priester needs to figure some stuff out.

Jared Jones is in the process of figuring out the ABS system is from what I've heard is it's excellent, excellent stuff. It's the command numbers that you're seeing with, with Jones are related to dealing with the computer strike zone. They've got Bailey Falter schemes is probably on the way. If Ronzi Contreras can like find his fastball you know, he could rediscover some of that upside. And then they've got Jackson Wolf,

the 88 mile an hour wonder that they, they picked up from San Diego in the Rich Hill trade. I mean, Skeens is one thing. I mean, that's obviously a top-end talent. I'm pretty excited about Jared Jones. They need Marco Gonzalez because the rest of those guys are big question marks, I think. Yeah, and I wonder if they can find their way into a middle-tier addition to that rotation. One more free agent splash. I know it hasn't been their organizational approach, but I think it would actually give them a chance to be at least a 500 sort of team in the NL Central. I like what they're doing in Pittsburgh, slowly coming together, but I think they are at

least one quality starting pitcher away given the young uncertainty why not take a chance on Seth Lugo and and you know maybe put a million more on that deal than somebody else you know and get a get a guy for three years you know in Pittsburgh that you're building towards something that you're trying to you know your young players are coming up you're putting together a team that should win sometime in the next three to five years why not sign a three-year deal with seth lugo or if the market on edward reggae is is too soft because the mets are out and nobody likes his stuff plus and you know eduardo rodriguez in pittsburgh like that seems like that would be you know a recipe like just right like you know detroit like a nice park for him he's gonna you know overperform his his velocity and his stuff and and so i i think that

would make a lot of sense for them is to to go get one of those guys that's honestly that's kind of the top of the market these days it's not the very top but it's uh it's right underneath that maybe you can go uh get one of those guys while the big teams are napping while they're trying to get otani and they're worried about trading for Soto and they're doing all these top-line things, maybe go and snag Seth Lugo when nobody's looking. I feel like someone like Seth Lugo, if there was as much interest as there was reported to be in Eric Fetty,

that Seth Lugo has even twice as many teams interested. 8, 10, 12 teams pursuing him. There's got to be. Right? And then that's probably a three-year deal. It's his best chance to get that. Plus, it's probably $12-year deal. It's his best chance to get that. Plus, it's probably $12 to $15 million in AAV as more and more teams get in the bidding.

But I want Seth Lugo for like $3.35, $3.45. I would do that. I mean, I think that would be a great way to shore up the middle of a rotation. And you know that you've got this sort of high floor in that if it doesn't work out in the rotation for whatever reason, he's proven that he can be a seventh, eighth inning guy. So it's not like you're going to go from 15 to zero in terms of value getting back. That's true. That's definitely true. I think we should talk about this small move that ordinarily wouldn't make any ripples at the winter meetings victor caratini to houston because it's good news for a hitter we like yiner diaz who should have played more for the astros in 2023 increasingly looks like the number one catcher and caratini is a good enough backup to

play a third of the time so maybe you're still talking about a catcher in diaz as he continues to improve the defensive facets of his game maybe Maybe he's still going to start 100 games behind the plate and maybe a dozen or so as the DH and Caratini plays the rest, but that they didn't bring back Martin Maldonado, I think is really good news for the playing time outlook for Diaz in 2024. Diaz is really exciting. I mean, the one thing he doesn't really show is patience at the plate or a sense of the strike zone, but he's got, I would say, a decent hit tool for the amount of power he's got. So you're talking about a guy who might strike out 20 to 22% of the time. I'm

going to take the over on the projected strikeout rate, just given that he swings at half the pitches he sees outside the zone i think i'm not sure he's going to retain a sort of 18 16 18 percent strikeout rate but especially also his whiff rates last year's yeah 15 percent whiff rate uh that suggests to me that i think the strikeout rate is going to be a little higher than the projections uh i think they think they are but still with that kind of power and that's actually average contact now, I'm going to take like a 260 average and 25 homers, and that makes him one of the top five

offensive catchers in the league. Yeah, I think the only thing that holds him back is a smaller share of playing time than some of the guys that will be ranked ahead of him. There are some questions about his defense. i've heard varying reports from people i've talked to this to people about this inside the game and what you know some feel like there's actually a bit of a language barrier you know that he's you know you're talking about a catcher doesn't really speak english and you've got to you know figure out ways that you can get past that.

I wonder if that's something that technology can help with. Pitchcom. I mean, I know there's more to communicating as a catcher than calling the game. Yeah, it comes out in Spanish in one com and in English in the other. Yeah, you're just entering it on the keypad. But there's the whole sort of prep work that comes to before the game when it comes to like just knowing uh everything about your pitchers even sometimes connecting with the pitchers you kind of want your catcher and your pitchers to to form bonds you know as humans you know so that uh they kind of understand each other's tendencies and uh can make good calls for each other also helps though

you know from braville des uh christian j. There are members of that rotation who speak Spanish, too. So that softens the blow. If you had five guys in the rotation who spoke no Spanish, it'd be a tougher fit for someone like Diaz. He's trying to make those kinds of adjustments. I had this segment idea for our show on Tuesday. Is this news? They're so desperate for news here that the the rule five i think this is most of well attended rule five i've ever seen i think i think 30 000 people were in attendance

for the rule five ref this year because it's just like well we're here so we might as well i think this counts as news uh perry manass saying that Mike Trout will not be traded this offseason. I still can't, with any degree of confidence, tell you the Angels are going to do X, Y, and Z because it's the Artie Moreno factor. Yeah, but I think they're going to try and compete, but they're going to do it without Otani. Yeah, and I try to think, what's their path forward? What is enticing to free agents? Sign Blake Snell. That'd be interesting. Another pitcher.

Yeah. I mean, they need it. They need a little bit of everything. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think at some level, Hope Rendon gets it together. I mean, I know that you're rolling your eyes at this point. Most people are saying he's not even talking a good game at this point. No. Broken.

But how are you going to sign a Matt Chapman for four years and $65 million when you still are spending $25 million a year on your existing third basement? I know there's some costs and I know that

I'm talking about a fallacy on some level, but there's also just the realities of a budget. It's like if I have 25 there, it's hard to put a 15 on top of it. I look at their course like, okay, we're not trading Trout. Fine. So you got Trout and you have Netto and you have Logan Ohapi. And before the shoulder injury, Logan Ohapi looked like a great pickup from the 2022 trade deadline. Didn't he show some power when he got back, too?

Yeah, he seemed to recover from that surgery very well. Pretty well, yeah. So I think that's really encouraging. I think that set him up for a pretty normal progression through the offseason. We talked about how we think Zach Nato is pretty good. There's a lot of untapped potential there. I mean, just tore up the minorsors got to the big leagues so quickly i'm not um i'm not the kind of person that would want nolan chanuel's skill set at first base that doesn't work for me no but that's that's picking nits brandon jury is

still but if he's like one of the worst players on the team or he's like a a six hitter for you and he's cheap then it's maybe not a problem. Yeah. So I just look at the roster and think, okay, where are they going to upgrade? Taylor Ward should be healthy. If the scary hit by pitch in the face and Toronto Moniak and Joe Adele at the top of the right field seems like a place where you could maybe invest some money. You got to fix that. The corner outfield situation in free agency is not amazing either. I mean, if you're talking about, uh, Lourdes Goriel, uh, and, uh, you know, if it's not Bellinger, right. And I'm assuming maybe that money would get tight, you know, with, uh, with Bellinger, but maybe, maybe they're,

maybe they just go big and they're like, well, we're not going to spend the 400 million, but we did, we did spend like 35 million on Otani last year. So let's spend that $35 million that we spent on Otani on Cody Ballinger and Blake Snell next year. Yeah, I'd like that. And I think the one thing about Otani's departure or likely departure, it's not a certainty, is that now you can DH Mike Trout some days. You can take a little wear and tear off his legs and off his back.

And then Cody makes sense because Mike Trout's defense and center is, I mean, you leave him there because Mike Trout wants to be there, but I wouldn't describe it as top of the league. I think you're at the point, though, where if you bring in someone like Bellinger, you'd say, I get it. I'll move to right field. It's fine. I'll be in the corner. We have an upgrade there now. The other notable tidbit that stood out to me, and this makes sense. We talked about Jackson Churio.

Is this news? There's our jingle. Jackson Holiday will have every opportunity to make the opening day roster for the Orioles, which is something that I think we would have assumed anyway, just based on what he did in the minors last year. It was Brandon Hyde speaking to some reporters who put that out there. I believe it was onon hyde speaking to some reporters who put that out there i believe it was on tuesday during his media session so even just like comparing jackson to jackson holiday as far as what you expect them to do initially does jackson holiday have a a safer floor based on what we saw them do in the upper levels of the minor leagues even though

both players have just extraordinary ceilings safer floor than whom than jackson chorio ah possibly there's a uh there's definitely a better sort of plate approach when it comes to walks and strikeouts um you know we we have incomplete uh power batted ball information for both of them but um the reports are that chorio has plus plus power so he's a little bit that Churio has plus plus power. So he's a little bit more of the, you know, plus plus power, maybe some swing and miss profile, whereas Holiday may end up more in the sprays the ball around, has a great average in OVP, but maybe doesn't hit, you know, 35 homers a year or something.

So, you know, different profiles, different strengths and different weaknesses. But, you know, from all accounts, Holiday is a very polished hitter that should hit the ground running. And he really, Jorge Mateo is a good player, but I think he's best cast as a utility player. I mean, he would be one of the best utility players in the league, I think, in terms of ability to play short, ability to run

and change the game on the base pass. I mean, it just, uh, he he's played center in this past, like he, he can play all over. That's what I would cast him as. And, uh, that would leave me, uh, holding Joey Ortiz, Ramon Urias, Connor Norby, uh, you know, in my back pocket, you know, and I tried to get a sense. We were talking to Mike Elias, trying to get a sense of how much he's going to wait for the two young guys in the minor leagues, Chase McDermott and K. Povich.

He kind of dropped them. He said, you know, we've got two guys who are ready in the minors, but he did also talk about timelines where we learn from Grayson Rodriguez and we learn from Kyle Braddish that it doesn't always happen right away. And so I think they were going to try and supplement with money and free agency rather than trade. But the trade options have have higher ceiling sometimes like a Dylan sees has a higher ceiling than a Seth Lugo you know and so you may see

them try to package that you know Joey Ortiz Norby they also have Heston cursed ad behind Ryan Mountcastle on the depth chart. And in the outfield, you've got Colton Hauser behind Austin Hayes. I mean, if you're lucky, you can trade like an Austin Hayes or an Anthony Santander for an arm. I mean, they would love to do that and keep the younger players, you know. But it may take one of the names I've said between Kerstad, Couser, Norby, and Ortiz to pry away a Dylan Cease, if that's the way they go. I think, you know, we've talked about this a lot, but, you know, there's always Florida. There's always Miami, you know, looking for bats and offering arms.

So, I mean, how great would it be if they put Yuri Perez on it? I mean, that's too much. But what if they thought that they had a way to figure out Edwin Cabrera's command? Right. You know, and they traded for Cabrera and put him in that rotation, gave him the Tyler Glass now treatment with a single target or figured something out in his pitch mix. That would be pretty exciting is to throw a 98-mile-an-hour arm there

next to Grayson Rodriguez I mean that's the type of team that could win a World Series I think so and I think part of where there's two things that have changed in Baltimore over the last several years the front office and their ability to identify pitchers that can be fixed I think they

have that it's part of the DNA of the Astros and that's of course where Mike Elias and Sig and a lot of the people in that front office came from. Some proof in the pudding with Bradish and Rodriguez, like figuring that out. The recent success is there. Bradish is a great success story. John Means, to an extent, kind of part of that, too. And then you say, well, the ballpark also helps.

In addition to the adjustments we can make, the ballpark can fix the flaw. That's such a mental recalibration we've had to make over the course of the last two, three years. Baltimore used to be a place that you streamed hitters. Yeah, you streamed hitters. You had no interest if a player got traded there or signed there. It was always a negative for their outlook for the upcoming season, big downgrade fantasy-wise. And now it's a place you're seeking out pitching. I see a lot of value because I feel like outside of Grayson Rodriguez,

especially, the market hasn't fully caught up to it yet. Even though people know about it, it's still there's skepticism about Braddish because it's only been one season plus a late run in 2022. Rodriguez is always going to be way too expensive, relatively speaking. And I know the adjustments after his demotion are a big step in the right direction, but this is just one of those teams that has to do something. You did so well and you've got so much position player talent still

stockpiled. You can't play everybody. So I think as we do get to that next wave of moves post Otani, the Orioles will finally trade some of that surplus. It seems inevitable. And you also have to kind of sometimes look past what people say about their own prospects. Everybody loves their own prospects. I mean, I'm looking at Cade Povich and Chase McDermott's minor league stuff. And again, it's not everything everything i know these are starting pitchers they have results but you know povich's results are not even that good uh he's got a 100.5 so basically a league average stuff plus uh down in the minors in triple a and uh and mcdermott has

a 101 so neither of them is blowing the doors off the the hinges when it comes to stuff maybe uh they can be coached up but po Povich doesn't even have the results. So I'm not necessarily organizationally looking at those two as anything other than like if someone gets hurt, we'll give them a shot. Maybe they'll surprise us. Maybe they'll be good. I don't necessarily have them. Like we just talked about Jared Jones.

I would be more excited about Jared Jones than I would be about either of those two prospects if I was playing fantasy or if I was their teams. Yeah, I agree with you. Jared Jones is really interesting. I think he's a great deep sleeper here for 2024. Two more items in the is this news bucket before we sign off, unless a trade happens in the next three minutes or so. AJ Puck stretching out as a rotation candidate this spring. I'm just surprised by that because i thought it i thought it worked really well for him in relief i just thought that was going to be his long-term home well uh as mason miller goes to the bullpen aj puck comes out uh there seems to be uh something similar about these guys uh but um i always thought you know I remember we were at, I was at spring training and, you know, I come up on AJ puck. It must've been 2019.

And I thought it's like a Randy Johnson, you know what I mean? This guy's thrown 98 with the wild, the hair, everything, and a little bit of a demeanor. And like, I was like, this is interesting. And he's had the strikeout rates all the way along the way um and the velo has been pretty good but 11 innings in 2019 13 innings in 2021 am i missing minor leagues here okay i'm missing some minor 21 there's some minor so 2019 all in all, we got about 30 innings. 2021, we got about 60 innings. 2022, 66.

Last year, 58. I don't know, man. I think at some point you show how many innings you have capable in your arm, and it seems to me he's around 60. I'm surprised that the home run rate jumped as much as it did. Being in Miami Park, that does a pretty good job suppressing power. I think that could just be a small sample thing. In 56 innings, you give up one or two through DeMay homers,

and it just looks terrible. Yeah, 7-66 in a third during that final season in Oakland, though, too. So it's not as bad as it was in 2023. I think a step back in that direction would be nice for him. 15 saves last year though too 78k is against 13 walks that's a really good reliever don't mess with that don't break him just to try and and squeeze more innings out of him because it's been tried enough times like we can and tenor scott like you know tenor scott has real command issues it'd be better to have a righty

lefty command they both have command issues so So, you know, you never know. In a given season, maybe they just can't find it. You know, you'd rather have a backup plan. Like, I'm not, like, putting Tanner Scott in my bullpen and just being like, job's done, you know? So, like, you take Puck out of that bullpen, you're like, okay, so what else you got going, you know? So I think they'll end up coming to their senses.

So here's the wildest one for the rundown for a long time. Dylan Coleman traded to the Astros. I'm kind of excited because I thought a couple years ago that Dylan Coleman was going to quietly become a closer in Kansas City, and now he goes to an organization that has done a lot of great work with pitchers over the past decade now. We're talking about a guy talking about an 884 ERA and a 21-19 strikeout to walk in 18 of the third innings last year. I'm scraping the bottom of the

barrel here, but am I just deferring to the Astros here, or is there actually some stuff to like with Dylan Coleman that can be reasonably fixed? I've got a little story here. I guess it's somewhere between gossip. I don't have this verified by multiple sources, not something I could necessarily put in a piece, but I had heard that at one point,

Dylan Coleman on the Royals was throwing a sweeper and that his pitching coach told himals was throwing a sweeper, and that his pitching coach told him to stop throwing the sweeper, which he did for a while, and it didn't go well. So he just started throwing it again, and nobody said anything. So just a little window into what's happening in Kansas City. And I think this actually just goes back really quickly to trading with the Yanke the Yankees when it comes to, uh, prospects trading with the, you know, the rays and the Dodgers when it comes to arm prospects, you know, I had a conversation at 2 AM over many beers last night, uh, in the,

in the bar, um, about like, how do you leverage that? Like, do do you would you rather get an arm from the royals than from the dodgers because you feel like you know that arm is coming to you maxed out so greg weiser is already throwing this slider as much as he's going to throw you can't tell greg weiser to throw a slider more he's throwing it a ton you know what i mean and you you know if you've got fits like you there's not much you're going to tell Fitz to do. He's, he's done the things that the good organizations tell their pitchers to do in the case of Dylan Coleman. I think, you know, I think even the stuff plus numbers might be lying because he might not be throwing that sweeper. Maybe he's throwing two sliders and they're going to tell him, stop throwing that one slider, throw that sweeper. We're, We know the sweeper is good. Please throw the sweeper. So, um, you

know, you've got decent below, uh, you've got, uh, at least a history in his past of being able to shape a spin. And that's what they're getting. They're just, they're just like, they like below, they like spin. They think, they think they've got some raw material to work with. And then maybe on some level, they're taking them from a team that they don't think they really know what they're doing. From a philosophical perspective, I would much rather try and find players in an organization like that than fish in the pond of Dodgers prospects where everything has been, every reasonable thing that a smart team does has already been brought out. It doesn't mean that they don't make mistakes, but you're more likely to get something,

to improve something when you get a player from an org more like the Royals. I mean, the Giants had all of their top relievers, not even their top, had all their relievers in the top of their minors in AAA and stuff, just throw sliders like 60% of the time. Now, if you're combing through the minor leagues

and you're like looking for relievers and AAA that have good strikeout rates, like all these like giants relievers pop up, Mauricio Jovera and like all these guys. And like, you know, all of a sudden, Mojave is on waivers and you're like,

well, you know, of course he gets claimed because of that strikeout rate, but there's just not like, there's just not another level. People kind of want, you know, to think that there's some clay they can shape, I think, with these acquisitions. These sort of lower acquisitions.

You want a little bit of a project because you feel like you can do something that they just haven't done yet and get a better and expected result. But when Dylan Coleman's pitching the sixth inning and has great numbers in October for the Astros... We told you so, I guess. Shame on you, Royals. Come on, get it together. Well, that's going to do it. The Juan Soto trade has not happened. It's not happening yet.

It's 3 o'clock Eastern as we're getting ready to sign off here from Nashville. We're going to produce this quickly for you. We're going to turn this around as quickly as possible. We have more conversations from Nashville. Eno spoke to a ton of different people with jobs in baseball. We have more conversations from Nashville. Eno spoke to a ton of different people with jobs in baseball. So we have a series coming out. Those will be individual interviews on YouTube. We'll put those into podcast form as well. So keep an ear out on

the feed for that episode or those episodes. Well, we were just really lucky because there was nothing going on. So we were able to get some executives in here talking about their path into the game and the types of skills that they're looking for. So if you ever were curious about getting a job in baseball, you're looking to get a job in baseball, or you just wanted to know what kind of people they are looking for, I think check out the series. There's a little bit of vignettes with different players, different people in different parts of the game. Yeah, whether you're just curious about how people function within baseball or you want to work in baseball one day, I think there's a lot of paths to be really interesting. We've got everybody from Kyle Bode to Sam Fold.

So it's a great lineup of people. It really is. So that's going to do it for us from Nashville. We are back with you next week. Thanks for listening.