Rates & Barrels - A Lifetime Ban, May Hitting Risers & Fallers, and The Shape of a Season

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

Eno and DVR discuss a round of suspensions from MLB for gambling -- including a lifetime ban for Tucupita Marcano, before looking at some of the biggest risers and fallers among hitters from April to May.  Rundown 1:00 Tucupita Marcano: Lifetime Ban for Betting on Baseball 16:47 Biggest Shifts in Hitter Performance: April v. May 22:01 Risers From April to May 30:54 Rookie Bats in Month 2 38:39 Colton Cowser to Fallers From April to May 43:04 May Barrel Rate Risers 49:04 May Hard-Hit Rate Risers 52:04 Full-Season Projections v. Performance to Date 1:07:45 Is a Randy Arozarena Rebound On Tap? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Tuesday, June 4th. Derek and Rhymer, Enosaris here with you. Brichard Olley on a much deserved vacation. Weird stretch of schedule, right? Three weeks without Britt, but it was because we had two shorter weeks based on the schedule being all messed up. So Britt comes back next Tuesday. We're looking forward to that. If you're watching us on YouTube, smash the like button.

If you're not watching us on YouTube, subscribe to the YouTube channel. Good things happening there all the time. And of course, join our Discord. The link to do that is in the show description. You know, how's it going for you on this Tuesday? All right. But it was sobering news this morning. It's just sad.

Are you referring to the baseball news? Yes, the baseball news. It was sad. I knew yesterday on Monday afternoon, I saw on Twitter was just getting the episode up for yesterday. To compete in Marcano was trending on Twitter and my brain went through the possible scenarios and none of them were good. There's, there's just no, there's no good scenario. Yeah. Even if he's being called up, it's, he's not trending on Twitter for being called up. No, I mean, like the only positive scenario I could come up with was

he like hits for the cycle or Homer game or something like just something something that would get everybody in the sports world to amplify it. And of course, the news is that to Capita, Marcano has received a lifetime ban for betting on baseball. You don't want to be the answer to a trivia question. Looking at the details of the report, Marcano placed 387 baseball bets, 231 of them were on major league games. And that was between the window that started October 16th of 2022 through November 1st of 2023 total was more than $150,000. According to the league, 25 bets were made on the Pirates while he was on the roster,

though he was on the IL with the season ending knee injury at the time. League also says Marcono bet almost exclusively on the outcome of games and lost all of his parlay bets involving the pirates winning just four point three percent of his MLB Related bets that almost seems hard to do unless it was mostly parlays by the way. I guess I guess that's part of the explanation Hard to lose ninety six percent of your bets. Yeah, unless you're making very poor bets Yeah, I know and I mean, that was one of the things that that stuck out for me in the report was, I mean, it was that it was in baseball's own self-interest to point out that these people didn't make a lot of money off of these bets and that they hadn't affected the structural integrity of the game and that they weren't passing on insider information. But I also read it from the other angle, which is God, man, the house always wins.

These guys lost a bunch of money. They thought they had insider knowledge on just at least the level of who's hurting, who's not, and who's playing, you know, on the level of like, who's playing good. You know, like I know I've seen this guy, he's raking, you know? Um, and, um, I came, I came away with the house always wins. These guys, uh, all lost except for Michael Kelly, who made 20 bucks on 900, um, $99 of investment. So he bet a hundred dollars and came away with a hundred and twenty.

That was the other take away for me was all my god i feel so badly for these players and. I know they broke a rule it's is one of the biggest. It is one of the biggest oldest rules in baseball and is the big one not to bet. And I don't actually feel as bad for two Capita Marcano because he went all in with $200,000 worth of bets, betting and you know, and then on his own team and and broke rule 21, which is the big one that everyone knows the Pete Rose rule. Um, but I do feel a little bad for the other guys cause they were all in the minor leagues. Uh, they all bet beer money.

I mean, $200, $100, $400 for these guys in the minor leagues. And it's just kind of tragic, because they have so much more on the line with their own careers. Right. The amount of money Chukapita Marcano could make staying in the major leagues, even for just two more seasons as a league minimum player was far greater than what he was going to make gambling, especially Chuck and Parlay's out there. Yeah.

Andrew Salford could have spent this year in the major leagues or at least partially in the major leagues or at least partially in the major leagues. And he bet like $400 and now he loses 400,000. I mean, it's the, it's the worst outcome, the worst betting outcome. You, you really lost. Um, but you know, it's important for baseball to police this sort of thing because they have to, they have a really tricky line to walk, which is that they are in bed with the bedding houses as a league, but the game needs to have its integrity or else, you know, people who bet on it won't continue to bet on it, right?

Like if you think that baseball is rigged, then you won't bet on it. I mean, you won't even watch it if you're just a fan of it too. Right. So there's a lot at stake. It's, you know, it seems kind of, it almost seems like the betting $200 and risking 400,000 on the level for baseball. Cause they're getting some sort of like influx of cash, but they're betting the integrity of the game.

They're betting everything in some way. That's the risk for sure. And that's why I think any time you see a report like this, a press release about players being suspended, you're always going to get, unless they find that outcomes were altered, you're going to get that clearly put in there. Oh, this did not impact outcomes of the game. Yeah, because that was such an important part of it. Every single one.

I don't know, man, like it's this is the kind of situation. And of course, with the Ipe Mizarra story that was happening, jeez, just two and a half months ago, that that just so strange how that seemingly faded as quickly as it did. There's there's a lot of space between the person who's translating for Shohei Otani and guys that are basically like fringe major leaguers or up and down guys that are trying to break through and like the access to what they have. Right.

And a lot of this comes back, I think, to for minor league players, being in pretty dire financial situations, a lot of times that's a factor that is still, I think, a part of this conversation as well. I'm kind of surprised that some of these guys had 200 bucks. Yeah. I mean, I guess the other thing you think about, okay, so clearly sports betting has changed a lot in this country in the last decade. You can do it from your phone in many states that I know.

It used to be something that was this is why it's not 200 bucks. It's like 10 bucks. I put 10 bucks on the thing and see what happens. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if there's a future where, you know, the severity of your punishment hinges more on how aggressively you're playing. I don't think they want to go down that road. I think they want it go down that road.

I think they want it to be zero or one. Like this is what you can do and this is what you can't do. One thing I learned from this was a rule-based thing. I did not know that rule 21, the rule at question here, had a distinction between betting on your own team and betting on other teams. Right, and that's why Marcano has a lifetime ban and the other four players that were suspended as a result of this recent investigation. J. Grom, Prospect, the Padres organization,

Solfranc, Jose Rodriguez, and Michael Kelly, who you mentioned before. That's why they have one year suspensions. That's the difference. And I guess that speaks to what we're talking about, which is just betting on some other game that you're not involved in. Does not affect the structural integrity of the game in the same way. But you might know a player on that team and he might have texted you my knees hurt or something and be like, oh, that sucks. I'm going to bet against your team today. There's just too much risk of nefarious things happening there

for that punishment to be lighter. I don't know. I don't think a one year ban sends as much of a message. Lifetime ban? That's pretty clear. One year? Okay. Especially if you're a pitcher, you could get hurt anyway. You could miss a year. Right. So they're introducing nuance to this and introducing gray areas. You know, there is a, a recent situation where there was a player when they weren't, when we weren't playing, you know, like,

and so he wasn't, he wasn't playing baseball, but he was affiliated with the A's. And. He bet on the A's. But he wasn't in baseball. Well, minor league baseball was shut down that year. Peter Bayer, B.A. Y.R. Peter Bayer. Yeah. So. his contract was suspended and he bet on the A's, but he was affiliated with Oakland. The reason this was uncovered, I guess, is there was a tip from whichever sports book

these players were using to the league. Right. Oh God. So then you wonder, okay, is this, are players much more likely to be caught now with legal channels for sports betting. They were in the pre gamble from your phone legally era. I'm hoping there's been some advancement, especially with the John T Porter news and NBA and just generally what's going on. I hope there's been some advancement among the players in the knowledge of what they can and can't do. You know, so Marcano was 22 and 23, but Kelly was 21.

Jay Groom was 21. The Jose Rodriguez was 22. I don't know. Sol Frank was 22. I don't know. There's Sol Frank was 21. So I'm, I'm hoping that these are years I'm yelling, I'm yelling out. It's a lag though. That does mean, yeah, what else is coming down the pipe? And are there, you know, but the Marcato one being more recent means like, this

seems to be like a sum up of all the investigations we've been doing and, you know, over the last three years, I'm sure it won't be the last time we're talking about players getting suspended for this. Or maybe it was one sportsbook opened up their books to them. So in the future other players are like, well better use a burner account, better use an illegal bookie. David Fletcher's fine. He's throwing knuckleballs. Are we assuming that David Fletcher was at these poker games with this guy and never been on baseball?

It's one of those things where your mind races and you can't speculate. I know. Yeah, we weren't in the poker room. We don't have it on. We weren't there. But when you start to deconstruct it in your head, you're like, what do you think really happened? I mean, we're told what we're told, but how much of the truth are we told?

The other thing is just like, you know, gambling is an addiction and it is one that has affected my family and, um, it is ironic to be in this space where we're talking about predicting the future. We're talking, we're going to talk now about, you know, players and which players are going to play better and stuff like that. We're going to talk now about, you know, players and which players are going to play better and stuff like that. And I think we are as a society struggling with some of these gray area lines where, you know, so my grandfather kind of gambled the family money away and my grandmother left him in the fifties. You know, this is a big deal in our family.

So my father did bet on baseball, but he gave himself very stringent rules i'm only gonna have this i'm gambling this amount of money so i can if i lose it doesn't affect my life you know it's a it's a small amount i know that i might just all lose it all so therefore i will. Go in open eyes and not risk anything that affects my family and me being sort of third removed from this was, you know, I want something for my money. Like I don't like gambling in Vegas because I've sat down and blown like $500 in like 45 minutes. And it's just like, that sucks in terms of like money in, time spent enjoying it and money out, you know, like that's a really bad investment. And so fantasy for me, the line has been a little bit about that. How, how quickly, you know, and this is literally what the governments are, are having trouble with this because some places fantasy allowed fantasy for money is allowed, but is not allowed every state is like trying to figure out what's allowed what's not. And I do think that one way that I've cleared it with myself is not only. If I lose every dime that I invest in fantasy this year it will not affect my family that is that is one thing that I would recommend to everybody who does this sort of thing

and to the time in versus time out like When I put the money in and when it comes out in between is enjoyment, right? And so mostly enjoyment. Yes, definitely some pain Some anger some frustration a lot of emotions. You don't even get to feel all those emotions if you put $500 on the table and lose it in an hour playing, you know, blackjack or craps or better table game. The emotion is pretty much just, it's a very quick, yeah, we're all up.

You're playing craps and then someone cools off with the dice and it's gone. And you're done. And you're looking at each other like, what do we do now? And so, yeah, in fantasy sports, one thing I do like about it is, um, if we do pay for aspects of it, like we're getting six months out of it. Yeah. I think there are lines to be drawn. Um, I will say that gambling is an addiction and we have hotlines and people should be aware

of that going in and that is the sober part of this because that could be part of the story with these guys. It could be and I think it was clearly part of the story with Ipe. You could see it. Oh, that was where it was really up. In the legal documents, it was strewn out there. It was really up. In the legal documents, it was, it was strung out there. It was classic addiction. Yeah.

And I don't think generally, I don't see a lot of sympathy for addicts, at least in social media circles. Well, there's very little sympathy for these guys today. I just said I was sad and there's a lot of people being like, I broke a rock. I would love to be the people that are out there just constantly going brimstone and fire. Like they must live some very pious lives. They must never screw up anything.

I would love to be more like them. Instead, I just feel super sad for Michael Kelly today. $99 worth of bets like two, three years ago. Bad judgment, bad decision that cost them a lot more than it probably should have. It's like a week for a week. Maybe he was sad. Maybe his girlfriend left him.

Maybe just found out he was hurt. Just got bored, stayed in for a night, watched a few games, fired off a few bets. There's such a wide range of problem behavior versus generally harmless behavior. Marcona seems a little bit closer to problem behavior. I mean, that's hundreds of thousands of dollars again. Yeah, absolutely. You're in the big leagues, dude.

You know you gotta stop once you get there. Right, so, I don't know. That's the story in baseball today. Not about the baseball, which, geez, every sport has these moments where the story shifts away from the fun stuff that's happening and it's generally brutal grinding through it to varying degrees, of course. It's true.

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where people generally talk a lot about April at the end of the month and say, this is the first month, these are the biggest risers. That doesn't really happen again, which is true, because we loved the first month for some reason. You and I have talked about our memories. Our memories work a certain way too. Yeah, it's the freshness, the new season. It's like ripping open a pack of baseball cards. You have that same kind of feeling, oh, what's changed? What's changed? But then we don't do the same exercise April to May, May to June.

And really you can see different shifts, but also I think it helps you understand the shape of a season. Even a very good season is gonna have a bad month in it more often than not, or at least a month that's not as good as the others, right? Six months in a season, one of them has to be your worst month. Players are not straight line performers,

they're up and down, they down their waves time and time again. I wonder if this might be actually a good time for me to interject really quickly. I did what you're talking about right now. I kind of looked through the shape of some of the excellent years last year. And so I just took I took younger players because they tend to be a little bit more volatile. So I took players under 25. I just took a random sampling of their seasonal splits. And, you know, we remember Gunnar Henderson, right?

Like we remember how he started out, you know, below average and kind of March and April and May was, had like a 200 batting average. And then he went off in the second half. That has this sort of linear quality to it where he just built, built, built, built, you know? a 200 batting average and then he went he went off on in the second half that that has the sort of linear quality to it where he just built built built built built you know but there are players that kind of went up and down so I looked at Spencer Steer and Steer had this interesting year where he was league average in May and June. So he went from a 98 WRC plus to 147, 144, right?

66 in July, 108 in August, 136 in September. So he was kind of more up and down than I remember at all. You know, I have Bobby Witt Jr. Uh, 73 WRC plus in April, 157 and 170 in July and August. Um, so he was really built on a couple of hot months. And then, you know, we also have these stories of guys. Uh, I, I, what I did have a hard time finding was somebody that was really up and down month to month, you know? But Michael Harris, 37 WRC+, in April, 47 in May, 167 in June, 112 in July.

He kind of had a little up and down. And then one piece of advice I have is that these things aren't very predictive in a sort of. Um, in this, like way that we want them to be the way that the story that reads the story. So I'm going to read you a story. It's boba shed. Um, and this one might, uh, be surprising or not. I don't know. Boba shed last year, uh, one 39 and in March, 158 in May, 100 in June, 138 in July, 65 in August,

98 in September. Uh oh, could we have seen what happened with Bo Bichette this year? You know, no. Apparently second half splits are not predictive, more predictive of what happens in the future and even when you break it down into young players. So I think the underlying message is poop happens and some of the stuff is hard to predict even with the underlying stats that we'll get into. And some of it is hard to know exactly how meaningful it is. And that's a kind of a weird sobering message at the beginning of a

of a segment. But, you know, you don't know if you've got Michael Harris or Boba Shet or Stenster Steer on your hands. You know, I think you're just trying to figure it out. I think you're just trying to understand what might be causing players to fluctuate as much as they do. And for me, the first thought is the free swinging players, the guys that strike out a lot would be more susceptible to running hot and cold. It doesn't mean that just because they were cold, they're going to bounce back.

But it gives you some sort of explanation as to what's actually going wrong. I would say that especially looking at April numbers, if you're looking at rookies, that's generally going to be a low point in a rookie season. Things usually go up from there. Even if you're still going to have one or two other months where you're still below average, you're probably not as bad in the last five months at any point than you were in the first month of the year, because that's when you're making the biggest adjustments. You're seeing top level pitching for the first month of the year, because that's when you're making the biggest adjustments. You're seeing top level pitching for the first time.

But even that it's not perfect because I was digging into a whole bunch of players. I was looking at the biggest risers from a WRC plus perspective from month to month, March and April get lumped together because there's a handful of games in March. So just to be saying, if we say April, it means March games were included for any party that's playing in March. But like the biggest change, this doesn't mean anything. Christian Bethencourt had a minus 66 WRC plus in the first month and he had a 122 in May. It doesn't mean he's good now, it just means he's just Christian Bethencourt, I think. But Aaron Judge is the second biggest riser. He had a 118

in April. And I think some of the questions about Judge at the end of the first month were, hey, is that spring injury, that abdomen problem, is that actually still bothering him? And then he went white supernova hot with a, he has a 51% barrel rate in the last 30 days. Yeah. I think it just gives you the resounding, his abdomen seems to be fine. It erases the concern you had in April. And the toe maybe.

And the toe too, which was a fluke injury. It could have happened to anybody. It's not a. I know there was that report maybe in February or March that came out that said he'll have to do maintenance on his toe. And we see things like that. People say, Oh my God, his toe is never going to be the same. And it's like, you know, I think every player picks up different things along

the way that they have to continue managing. That's just the cumulative wear and tear. And he too was wrong. You love bringing that up. I love bringing that wrong. Yeah. My brother-in-law loves that saying, so I always have to hear it. And I'm saying he's wrong.

Um, yeah, I mean, we all, we all take that little, I don't know if we all do, but we take that little thing and get the gunk out between our toes. And, you know, he's got to do it, too. But one thing that we have had from the from research is that volatility, which is a measure of how much people go up and down in their production, that that is related to both age and strikeout rate. So those are, those are. Pieces of research that we can point to, but volatility is interesting because, um,

with, we see with judges, uh, sometimes it can be good. It can be amazing. It can be historically great production for a month. I mean, it can be, or you could even get a whole year of it. Like if you think about it, Ronald Acuna jr is pretty volatile. Like not only injury base, but just what he's done on the field has been pretty up and down and the ups. The up was one of the best seasons of all time.

I mean, judge had the 52 Homer season all the way back in 2017. He popped 62 two years ago in 2022 and he's on pace for something kind of in between that total right now after what he just did in May. And now he's in a three year run with a barrel rate above 25%. I don't know if we'll ever see that again. That is unbelievable in terms of contact quality. And yeah, I mean, he's 32, so you're a little worried about durability

just because of how big he is and some of the stuff he's had. But I think people were quick to throw a worse durability grade on Judge than he probably deserved. I think in a weird way there's a lesson here for us with Ellie De La Cruz. Ah, okay. Well Ellie De La Cruz was on my notable faller side just from April to May WRC+. He lost almost a hundred points with WRC plus between the two months.

It's true, but he had a season with, he had a month with 170 day RC plus. He showed us how he can look when it's amazing. And I'm not doing this to protect my victory lap or anything. I, I, I fully expected there to actually be weeks like this. But what I'm saying is that, you know, the upside and especially in this case, the shape of what he's done is going to keep him in the big leagues and keep him relevant to us and keep us drafting him. And yes, there will be years where we get the bad version, but there is a year where

Elliott LeC la Cruz does four months like he did this April or five months or even six months like he did this April and has an MVP type season. And that I think is worth holding on to, worth drafting, worth investing in. You have to be careful how much you invest in it. But these very top end outcomes end up driving teams. I've made mistakes on the teams where I bought Ellie. Ellie has been in the tank for the last month. Those teams are in first place.

Because he's driving them with his legs. It's it's categorical juice. I mean, it's 32 steals in 60 games. And now we're, we're at the point he's put together basically a full season in the big leagues since his call up last year, right? 158 career games for LA Dilla Cruz, 234, 312, 412 of the slash line, 22 homers, 67, 480 as a base stealer, 105 runs scored and 69 RBIs. And that's the starting point.

That's what he's done learning how to hit big league pitching at 22 at 22. So when you start there, if that's, can we safely say for many players, at least your first 162 games are your floor. Generally most players come into the league at an age now where they're young enough. The projection is still forward. There's a handful of guys that maybe they break in at twenty five, twenty six, the late bloomers, the guys that didn't get a shot where it may be their best stretch is their first stretch.

I would separate the sort of pop up, you know, like, oh, you know, this guy just came out of nowhere from, you know, guys that we've been tracking since they were prospects, you know. Yeah. And if you can tell me that a player in his first season's worth of games is going to hit 20 or more homers and steal 60 or more bases, you don't tell me anything else about the player. I'm excited about that player. first season's worth of games is going to hit 20 or more homers and steal 60 or more bases. You don't tell me anything else about the player. I'm excited about that player.

That's good. I have a player. What if his name was Bobby Whit? Well are you learning? Are you changing? Are you changing? I think I'm changing a little bit because I think that so a lot of how playing time works is how organizations feel about a player and the importance of a player to an organization.

That was my big bet with Ali. I was like, this guy is super exciting. They're going to put him in a shortstop and that's they obviously love him, you know. And that's what I overlooked with Bobby Witt Jr. Was that he clearly like there's probably going to play lead off all year, even if he has a 98 WRC plus or a three, oh five LBP. Yeah. And his first season ended up being twenty twenty two is all just put together. It was a twenty thirty season. I should have been more excited about that. And somewhat similar to Ellie, right?

Where it was like near league average with the WRC plus. If you give them the current stolen base rules, I think we would reasonably say fifteen more bags would have been there at least. And Ellie's got a 312 OBP compared to a 294. So Ellie's first year in the league was even better by OBP and power speed than Wits. And Wits turned out to be maybe a 1-1 pick for us in 2025. That's the ceiling he's reached. So I've learned slowly.

I think I think that I mean, that's the overarching idea is that like, you know, if someone has reached some like sort of legendary peaks, like, and they're early in their career and they're young, then you sometimes you just have to swallow the valleys, you know, I did see Colt Keith was a big riser. He had a 12 WRC plus in the first month, a 152 in May. I think that's really encouraging. That's sort of in line with the guys

that have performed everywhere. They keep getting chances. We'll generally figure it out. I think it's even probably better than I would have expected for May for him, even as someone that drafted Keith and likes him a few places. But you can pull back right now and say,

well, it's only a 291 slugging percentage. Yeah, that's definitely a problem, but he's not the only hitter in that lineup who's underperformed by power. And to see someone adjusting to big league pitching for the first time, keeping a sub 20% K rate, that's a pretty big win, right? The ground ball rates up a little bit right now compared to where it was last year between AA and AAA. We see that happen to a lot of players. So I do think Colt Keith showed some interesting signs of growth over the course of May that

I'd be excited about. And I started looking at the other rookies, just a few other ones that we were really excited about. I didn't really look at Wyatt Langford because he's been hurt, but Jackson Churia, whose playing time has been getting chipped away at, I don't like it. Just let him play. He's actually down from a 73 WRC plus in April to a 55 in May. And I think this is a challenging player development question that we're going to probably ask someone who's closer to people in player development at some point is

how do you find the balance between building confidence, letting a player learn and not hurting your team on the fly. Because that seems like one of the genuinely most difficult questions teams have to solve right now. When you don't have the luxury as a team of just saying, play every day or play 90% of the time, we'll give you a day off when we can tell you're really pressing, we'll give you the day off occasionally against a really tough same handed pitcher, but you show up to the ballpark most days knowing that you're in the lineup.

That's the kind of thing that I think teams are really struggling with. And also I think the balance between results on the field and process numbers. So for trio in specific, like I think that the 32% strikeout rate in April was a little bit surprising or was maybe the number that suggested that everything wasn't going great, even though he hit some for some power and stole some bases. And you know that I think 33% that was higher than I expected. And then in May, when his playing time starts to be cut, and they're a little bit more judicious about when they play him, his strikeout rate plummets actually to 19%.

And that would be good news, except it doesn't come with any slug and it doesn't come with any walks and the on the field results don't improve any. Now you add in the fact that he does provide defensive value. So for your team maybe you just struggle along with this like Anthony Volpe in your first year and you say hey he's still helping us, you know, but is centerfield maybe an easier spot for them to paper over? I mean, they have guys who can play centerfield and they play at it, play Jackson Cheerio the corner mostly.

So it's fine. I think, I think the way I've landed on this and I'm always changing, I'm always trying to tweak it and rethink it is if you have enough regulars who are quality regulars, you can afford to let one or maybe two players, even on a contending team, be below average guys at the bottom and just making sure that. Everything else is working is really important to continue giving the struggling player that extra time. So this is probably the best place for him to learn.

Like we've said, like AAA pitching is no good. What does he, if he goes down there and just kills it, then so what? The Brewers right now have nine players with 50 or more plate appearances this season who've been league average or better with the bat between yellow to Joe your teas, Contreras, Hoskins, Terang, Adamis, Gary Sanchez, Joe Ortiz is saving Churios. But right. Because if, if, if, if Joey Ortiz or Bryce Terang were hitting like Jackson Churio, then you have a bigger problem.

Yeah. But if those guys cool off, if they get closer to league average and Churio in the second half hits more like an above average guy, it all kind of balances out. So I just think it's almost like it's not even in his hands right now. There's there's other stuff they need other players and they're getting it. And that's kept the door open for at least this semi-regular role as opposed to that demotion of AAA, but I have the same question you do.

It's like, will you send them back to AAA? What's he going to learn down there? The only, the only thing that he can get down there that he can't get up here is maybe, um, confidence. So I guess on some level you're watching the body language, you're watching the player and you're trying to gauge their confidence. But we also know from Trevor May that like, you know, no one ever wants to get sent down.

That could decimate. You're never going to ask Jackson to be like, yeah, okay, I'll go down there. And no, he wants to, he wants to show he can do it at the manager leagues. That could decimate you never gonna Jackson turn me okay go down there. No he wants to he wants to show you can do it at the manager leagues he thinks that tomorrow is gonna wake up and hit two homers. I think the other rookie that kinda caught my eye and Jackson Merrill down a little bit from a one oh five to a ninety three but he's actually a safe rookie Jackson Merrill. I think he was a safe contact it's always gonna a lot of contact. It's always going to be around league average. He's never going to be that much worse. He's going to put balls in play. He's going to be fine. Do you think Mason Wynn actually falls in that group because he's been pretty consistent through two months. It's not, you know, it's not a power heavy skill set so far. It's like

two homers in 53 games, but a sub 20% K rate. He's their third best hitter by WRC plus. He's drawing some walks. You'll take a three forty six OBP from from a shortstop, getting his first full season in the big leagues. Yeah. And what is his true talent? Batting average on balls and play with with that speed. And he definitely sprays it. It's a it's he hits it all around the field.

Yeah, I think there's still more raw power for him to tap into over time. I think so. We saw 110 EV last year in AAA. He hasn't hit that since. So if he gets to 110, I think he's I still think he could be like a 10, 15 homer guy. But right now, it's pretty exciting, actually. I don't know. It's good. It's it's not it's kind of Tommy Edmonds in a weird way. It's fine. You can play plus defense short.

And you're going to do that offensively. I mean, actually kind of interested to where he goes next. What if he finishes the year with like eight homers and. I don't know. 19 stone bases. And at 285 average. I think people are pretty excited about him. I think you have to remember some talking shape of the season to think about

think about CJ Abrams last year, right? With the overall slash line. And that wasn't his rookie season, but it was his first full season. Two 45, 300, 412. Ah, okay. That's that's sort of like a young player finding his way. 18 homers, 47 steals. Yep.

We're excited about that. That was a third round ADP this draft season for Abrams. And I don't think if we looked at the numbers through May of last season, I don't think the numbers look quite as good as they did from then on. I think Abrams got better with a more prominent spot in that lineup. They started leading them off a lot more for those final four months. You start to look at the stolen bases. Even I think those started to take off a little bit more in the second half.

at the stolen bases even I think those started to take off a little bit more in the second half it really felt like it was a slightly back loaded breakout or step forward from cj abrams a year ago yeah he had a he had a first half 85 wrc plus it was 55 for the month of june um and his first half line was 245 292 397 CJ Evans last year So a lot of the slugging came in the second half Yeah, some of it you also have to think about there's there's weather effects and sure and then there's you know These young players getting used to getting used to the league and I wasn't I'm not too surprised with Colton Couser Hmm, you know being on the list in the negative way. What do we what do we where do we have him?

He's. Couser dropped from a 182 in April, which no one thought he was going to sustain to a 71 in May. And I think. That fits in the range of normal. I think so. He's also a young guy who strikes out a lot. So he fits right into our, our grouping. You know, I'm a little surprised that with the walks, he wasn't able to keep the WRC plus respectable. But in fact, given we're looking at monthly splits here,

I think like a 70 something WRC plus in a month is actually kind of respectable. You know, it's like, it's not great, but it's, you know, we just saw minus something from Christian Betancourt. Yeah. Let's pull back again for a second. Who do you think is a consistent player? First quality hitter that comes to your mind as a consistent player or month to month, there would be less. Freddie Freeman. Okay. Let's take a look at some Freddie Freeman splits.

I wonder what Freddie Freeman's lowest WRC plus is in a month. Let's see, splits tool. So this is how you find these, by the way, go to the fan graphs, splits tool, and then you can drop by month, hit the advanced and you can see his whole career all there by WRC plus. We want recent stuff. Actually, Freddie Freeman hasn't had a month below 100 since 2019. He's too consistent, you know, but yeah, but he did have some before. When he was younger player. Sure. Yeah. There's some, there's a 65 in there.

That has only like 28 played appearances. It must've been a month where he was hurt. Jeez. Calzer doesn't profile anything like Freeman, of course. No, no, no. But the point is just like even great players who are consistent typically have some up and down. I think I would agree with your point. A 70 WRC plus for a month isn't a problem.

It becomes a problem when you dip below a certain threshold and there's competition. That's what happened to Edward Julian. He had a 138 in the first month and a 44 in May, and he was the one that got sent down with Royce Lewis coming back. We talked about that on Monday. But we also talked about how that was kind of a complicated roster issue on some play.

I do think Cows is a little bit safer on this Orioles squad despite all these guys that are coming up. It's pretty clear to me that there's a roster spot at play that we talked about the sort of the Kyle Stowers roster spot. And it's all relative because just as Edward Julian took a dip, Trevor Larnick took a dip, but Larnick fell to a 75 for WRC plus level 44. That's just better, right? So if you're trying to grade on the margins, that stuff matters. Mullins went from a 99 to a negative three. So Kauser dropping to a 71 isn't as much of a problem by comparison.

It's like you're constantly being measured against the next best alternative. Yeah. Mullins is keeping Kauser safe. If there's somebody on the chopping block in Baltimore, it seems like almost the next guy is Mullins. But I don't know how because it's too much of a track record but I don't know how, because it's too much of a track record and it's too much invested, it's too much of a contract. It's, I don't know.

Yeah, the stickiness of your role or your grasp on your playing time probably rides on the quality of the alternative in some cases. If there's a threshold, you have to stay above. And if you sink below that threshold, then it depends on the quality of who could take your job. Yeah.

And that's where things get really problematic. Even Jose Altube, 189 WRC plus first month, 63 in the second month. Are you worried about Jose Altube? Not really. But I did say we did have that comment that we won't know Jose Altube is done until he's done. Right.

There's more of the keeper dynasty question wrapped in with Altube, given the stage of the career you've had. Yeah, for the rest of this year, I'm I worried about how to do it? No, really. Do you think there's anything you mentioned the limitations and small samples, especially do you think there's anybody on the risers list beyond judge and Keith, the guys like Michael Massey, Corey Seeger just looks healthy again.

He's himself a Massey, Luke Rayleigh, David Frye, who we talked about last week. Nolan Gorman and Shay Lang Lear's Brent Rooker, Claybert Torres Yeah, and he sees himself, but Massey, Luke Rayleigh, David Frye, who we talked about last week, Nolan Gorman and Shay Lang Lear's, Brent Rooker, Claybert Torres, kind of getting a little closer to the guy we hoped he'd be coming to the season, still not crushing it, but much better than he was in April. Even Vlad Jr. also performing better in month two

compared to month one. But for the guys that were less rostered, is there anybody in there you're looking at and saying, that might actually be the start of something. Let's throw up the the the barrel risers list here. So I've color coded here the barrel risers that's where you can see that Aaron judge has a 51% bail rate in the last month. a 51% barrel rate in the last month compared to a 12.7% barrel rate in April. That makes him the biggest riser. O'Neill Cruz, Corey Seeger, Nolan Gorman is white hot.

Everyone who follows the Cardinals knows all about that. He's got a bunch of homers this week. Ryan Jeffers. So Nelson Velazquez, I think, counts as what you're saying. Andrew Vaughn counts as what you're saying. Andrew Vaughn counts as what you're saying. Willier Abreu, I think, is solidifying his spot as somebody who's not going to lose his job this year. Runs more than we expected. He's a better player than a lot of people expected.

He's just a really solid player. If he's available in a 12 or 10 team, like Will you are a Braves probably pick up. Vinny Pascantino is getting back to where we thought he would be. But to really I think JJ Bladay is somebody that sticks out as someone who's so widely available that I'm starting to believe in him. I've talked to him a fair amount about what he's doing. And, you know, the big thing is he's one of these guys that has a hole at the top of the zone. And so last year he swung a lot at that and developed the ability to put that ball in play weekly, foul it off, just put a bat on it.

And I think this year he's less excited to do so, but knows he can do that. And so he's focusing on his strengths, which are driving belt high pitches and lower, right? And by focusing on strength, he's got the best maxi view of his career, second best barrel rate of his career. You know he's he's hitting more fly balls than he did last year he's striking out less I mean it just seems like it's all coming together other than the speed I guess. But I could see him spending the rest of your hitting 240 and ending the year. With you know 22 homers. It's not super exciting in a lot of leagues, but it's it's useful in a lot of things, too.

Yeah, I'm with you. I think J.J. Bleday does have enough things he does well where he's going to keep getting those opportunities. Interesting that Nolan Gorman pops there since he was popping by results to the thing that's just not changing that much. I was looking at the rolling graph for his strikeout rate. Nolan Gorman still striking out a lot. And I've wondered for a long time if he could crack it and, and be kind

of another Austin Riley. And so far the answer is still no. I think he's the poster board for volatility. Young guy who strikes out a lot and he's just going to go white hot at times. The problem, you know, from a fan's perspective or DFS or any of these things is just, you know, picking when the white hot moment starts and when it begins. This is why shallow leagues are impossible for me. A 10-team league is hard because I'm so wired to say, we're playing for the whole season. I trust the projection. I trust that a volatile player is going to do what he's supposed to do over the course of the year. I don't know

when to sit him. I don't know when to start him. I've had trouble with that even in a 15 team league where you got good middle infield depth. Gorman maybe has a couple lefties on the schedule for a week. You say, all right, this might not be the week where he goes completely off and he's on your bench and he hammers a couple of two homer games against the righties and you miss out. I'm having a hard time with it. My son is in a six team league. That's right. Yeah, the six team league. And I'm just I'm looking at it like, I don't know, like he has Randy Rose Rain on his team. It's just I can't I just like you can't drop him.

But it's a 16 league. Maybe you can. I don't know. Yeah, my biases are all just like, I can't drop him, you know, like. And so it's been it's been difficult. I basically counseled him to consider the schedule. So it's a head to head league. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think you do lean more heavily into the schedule.

And so he's like he's trying to get as many like you know he's trying to put to start pictures in. And right now this week he's he's trying for the first time like a sort of software lever punt. Because they have to RP slots so he's put gar crochet and one of the reliever spots and he's just hoping you know if I get one or two saves and. spots and he's just hoping, you know, if I get one or two saves and maybe I can stay in saves and win my other stuff. So he's playing around with the different things you can do. One thing that I think is different is that the replacement level is so high for pitchers, especially in the 16 team, in a 16 league that I think like he just picked up Justin Verlander as a two starter

Just because of two starts, you know So like if that's true, then you then that you should be thinking about the different strategies You can employ because your replacement level so high. Yeah, I think the thing that I've always been frustrated by is I've wanted there to be a community driven baseball game where you could use any players you want. And like weekly increments, and you know, once you use a player, you can't use them for the rest of the season. The idea for me started with football, where it makes 10 times more sense because you can play the matchups and usage is a little easier

to project on a week to week basis. I think it would be so frustrating from a baseball perspective, trying to time it right. And you did probably have some restrictions on how often you could use players in Colorado or something for bats or just like there'd be a couple little tweaks in it, because I think you'd have a few outlier situations that make it less fun to play without those guardrails. But you also put together a list of hard hit rate risers. Probably some overlap on those names. I'm seeing Andrew Vaughn on both lists.

There's Langelier, so I kind of mentioned in passing before. Corbin Carroll's inching ahead, but he's one of the few. Corbin Carroll and Abraham Torah are one of the few that are notable hard hit risers, but yet their new hard hit rates are still below league average. Yeah, I mean, you see kind of a good step for Bo Bichette you see it for Paul Goldschmidt Josh Naylor I saw some questions about him in the discord. He's been a little quiet lately, but

Underlying numbers still look okay. At least I mean there's some really good news on here for Vladimir Grero jr. Randy or Rosa Reyna? Boba Shet Paul Goldschmidt. I do think those guys will turn it around. I think notable absence here is Nolan Aronato, who I've kind of said that I'm more excited about Paul Goldschmidt's rest of season than Nolan Aronato. So that's some really good news for some veterans there. And O'Neill Cruz showing up on both the barrel risers and the hard hit risers has got to make people who have invested in O'Neill Cruz showing up on both the barrel risers and the hard hit risers has got to make people who have invested in O'Neill Cruz feel better. I don't know, there's not really a low rostered player on here that is super actionable except

that maybe Toro and Jarrett Triolo, they're kind of similar in that they're considered to have okay hit tools, but they also aren't that exciting players across the board and Trillo strikes out a little bit more than you expect. And this does suggest that maybe he'll continue to play even as it gets a little bit more crowded in Pittsburgh as guys come up. So maybe Triolo, you know, maybe Leody Tavares is on the cut line for a lot of different leagues. And I think that the thing about Leody Tavares is that you look up at the end of the season and you'll have hit 275 with like 18 homers and 18 steals. And it'll obviously count as a valuable outfielder in all fantasy leagues.

But everybody who considered picking him up or dropping and will be like, how did he get there? I picked him up. I wanted to pick him up and drop him like 8 million times this year. I think I had some disappointment in myself that I dropped Leody Tavares like three or four weeks ago. Then I looked at his numbers again recently and was like, ah, I'm all right. Yeah, but, but. Unnecessary concern, but yeah, he's, he's a part of the.

It's better and it's usable. I've held onto him and I've had the opposite where I was like, I was like, I've held onto him. Was it worth it? I'm like, I don't know. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha when those types of situations come up. He's literally, he's projected to finish the year hitting 250 with 13 homers and 15 stone base, or 18 stone base, exactly what I said. It's just, it's kind of borderline, but there's good numbers that he's improved his hard hit.

So I was trying to take a look also at the initial projections from the bad X for hitters and compare that to performance so far to get a better sense of the shape of a season and just see like, okay, who's way over who's way under? Do we believe they're going to bounce back to rest of season numbers? I do think the important thing to remember when you're looking at performance to this point in the season, it was Steve Gisoul pointed out on our live stream last Friday, May was the least productive May for hitters

in the last 10 years, right? If you're comparing May to past Mays, right? It speaks to some of the weather, cool temperatures, different things we've talked about. Imagine the baseball has a drag recorder on their site. And I was looking at it, and it doesn't look that different from last year. That's pretty weird because the OPS for the league is the lowest it's been in a season since 1989

right now. We'll see if that holds up to the warm summer months. So keep like when you start to look at WRC pluses you'll see like a 115 or a 120 and you look at the slash line underneath it and go wait a minute what and usually it's high OVP slug. That's typically what you're going to see. And even like a 350 OVP is good. So it just it's just getting used to the way the numbers work right now. Still difficult even when you stare at them on a daily basis. Who do you think some of the bigger over performers? I don't know if you actually opened the sheet before the show or not.

If you did, you could spare me, but I didn't. OK, so biggest over performers by WRC plus their projections. Yeah. And let's let's try to hit on some of the fantasy relevant guys, because there's some guys that became waiver wire pickups that nobody was thinking about drafting in a 12 team league back in March. But there's a handful of guys that have gone Jordan Westberg. I don't know. Westberg is a great call.

He's 51 points above his projected WRC plus for the season. He's got a sub 20% K rate. He's popped eight homers. He's stolen five bases. The run productions there. Yeah. Jordan Westberg looks like to me like a solid breakout player this year. Yeah, there was a, there's an interesting piece over at the picture list about how the paradox of Jordan Westberg and how, uh, he has a higher

swinging strike rate, uh, than you'd expect or a higher with rate than you'd expect for somebody with a 19% strikeout rate and in fact has increased his with rate this year from last year and decreased% strikeout rate and in fact has increased his with rate this year from last year and decreased his strikeout rate. But I think we've talked about that phenomenon a little bit on this podcast where we've talked about my favorite example from a lot of different areas is Josh Hamilton. How he did not actually have huge strikeout rates for given given how bad his with rates were and given doing was he was so aggressive that he made contact before he struck out.

You know, it probably wouldn't have been great for him to have a 12% walk rate because then you would have had a 30% strikeout rate, you know. And so I think a little bit of what Westberg is doing is just saying, hey, it plays my my level of contact ability plays, you know, better if I'm aggressive, I get to my power better when I'm aggressive. And I don't know if it will be in his best interest to fold back the walk rates that he had in the minor league. So that'll be kind of fascinating to watch as he goes forward. And if he does go in the tank this year and kind of regressed to where his projections were, I think strikeout rate is a big part of why that will be. Yeah, the rest of the season projections point to low 20s for the K rate, like 22, 23 percent for the most part of what you're going to see and basically splitting the difference between what he's done so far this year, what he did last year when he was debuting.

It's still a pretty good player. I mean, a dozen homers, a half dozen steals, good run production because the lineup he's in on an average is probably better than, you know, at least the median average that your team's currently putting up. So yeah, Westberg made that list. He's one of the bigger fantasy relevant guys that's exceeded all year. I think we apologize to one of these players on an episode recently, Salvador Perez, he's in there as a massive overachiever.

And I think Sal's kind of like a pitcher version of the hitter version of the pitchers we talked about on the Monday show where you'd say like, what do you do when you have a player, you know, he's not going to sustain this, but is anyone really buying more than the projection on Sal for the rest of the season? And especially in like keeper leagues, anybody buying a 34 year old catcher? That just feels so much like a forced hold where you're like, you know what, I'm just going to see how long this lasts because this is working great. I did try to acquire him, uh, in my 12 team league from somebody who was not in the top half of the table and I was surprised to be rebuffed. Um,

is Marcelo Zuna on your list? I can't tell. He's a huge, huge, well, I mean he hit 40 homers last year, so I just, I wasn't sure, but the aging curve on a 33 year old D.H. especially one that has had poor seasons in between. I would have I would have it's basically Marcelo Zuna is keeping up what he did last year when projection systems would have said no way you're going to keep that up. Yeah. And I would say projection systems for the rest of the season, probably more optimistic on Ozuna than say Jordan Westberg because he's been good before, but still not going to tell you that 76% better than league

average is real. He had a 114 projected by the bat X going into the season. It's the same gap as Christian Jelic and Jelic has only been healthy for 31 games. So that makes it even more noisy with him. But Jelic kind of nudging back towards MVP Jelic right now, right? You take a look at the production so far. That's a 30 homer. This is just a blind spot for me. I don't think I have any shares this year. It's a 30 homer, 40 steel pace. No, that's what he's doing right now. Power increase. Look at that. But the barrel rates not up. The hard hit rates up, but still hits the ball on the ground a lot. They're already not up fewer ground balls than recent vintage.

A little bit higher fly ball rate. Right but still kind of looks like mostly the same yellage. Yeah the pace and the projections are way off. Like the bad ex says 10 more homers. Yeah I constant source of enjoyment and frustration simultaneously for me. Someone's like, I don't know if I believe he's MVP yell at you again, but he also might be healthier from like a back perspective. Maybe his back feels better now than it did the last couple of seasons. That's, I think that might be part of his

illness thing too. It's just health, like slightly better health than you might expect from some in his age, his size. You know, I'm guessing that Bryce Turing and Jerkson Profar are more of the sort of waiver wire guys you're talking about. I will say, you know, my son, because of his grandparents, you know, follows the Padres a lot and he keeps telling me that jerks and profile is good and that I'm wrong. Jerks and profile has been good this year. That's the distinction I try to make. You've to various degrees of success with a 12 year old.

He does understand probabilities and the future and projections and stuff like that. But he just keeps he's like every time we turn on the game profile is on base and I'm like, I know, but it's hard to argue with that. There's some there's a little bit of change with him with profile and that he has I think it is as much as as approaches mature to some extent like his His overall swing rate is down a little bit from last year his chase rate is down But he's managed to keep his zone swing up So I think like just his his eye at the plate has his approach the plate has matured in

Terms of max CV it is the best max EV he's had since 2018. So maybe he's feeling healthy. It's the second best barrel rate of his career. It all is just like, like tiny little marginal. And then there's definite luck involved. I mean, a 363 Babbitt for Profar is way over his skis, but this may be, this may be Pro Farr's best or second best season. Yeah, and he's had some decent ones.

I mean, the 20 homer, 10 steel type seasons he was putting up his last year in Texas, his only year in Oakland. Yeah. That's fine, that's good. Even the 20, 22, 15 homers, five steals, like he'll be somewhere in between those two things. Um, this year.

And, um, it's, uh, I just, the way that I finally came on it was like, he's a, he's a good player. He's always been a decent player and he's having one of his better years. That's a, I guess that's the type. He's basically the average for his career and projected to be better than that the rest of the way. Yeah. Always controlled the strike zone pretty well. I don't I don't know that I can like. Look at a group of players and be like, this will be the next Jerson profile, though it seems like a fairly unique.

Way to success. I think you're looking for someone who has a high P.T. floor and does the double digit walk rate, low strikeout rate trick. That's usually. Oh, that's your per domo trick that you pulled once. Yep. Yeah. And I thought Brian Rokeo could do it, and it's not impossible, but he hasn't quite been that guy yet. If India has a bad year this year, India could have a similar career path, I guess.

Yeah. Yeah, he could end up being a bit like that as well. Should we go to the other end of the board? Well, he's like he's like parade. This is a big exceed one oh nine projection one fifty eight so far. Not a surprise to see that Brent Rooker projected to be about league average has a 161 Brent Rooker is going to get traded to a contender. Isn't he? Brent Rooker to Atlanta.

Who says no, he is under contract till 2028. I don't know, dude. Yeah. But Brent Rooker is a little old, right? 29 years old. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a, that's a time but Brent Rooker's a little old, right? 29 years old, yeah. Yeah, I think that's a time for Oakland

trying to get someone a little bit younger into the organization for him. Upside down on the board, biggest under performer, Jose Abreu, right? He was projected for a 102. He's a negative 17. Vaude Grissom. I mean, Corbin Carroll's gotta be on this list.

Yeah, for the fantasy relevant guys, that people had high expectations for, Corbin Carroll's gotta be on this list. Yeah. For the fantasy relevant guys, like the people who had high expectations for Corbin Carroll projected for a one 22, he's had a 68 so far. We've talked about him a lot. You know, he's hitting the ball a bit harder now. I think he'll, I think he'll figure it out. The, with the hard hit rate data being here, like 37.7%, it's not great, but it's, I think it's stuff in the right direction. I think he'll be, I think he'll be good. And you know, I. For what it It's not great, but it's, I think it's stepping

in the right direction. I think he'll be, I think he'll be good. And you know, I, for what it's worth, the soft science stuff for me, I think he's, I think he's strong mentally. Like I think he's, I don't know. I think he's got that it factor. Seems like a slow heartbeat guy for someone

that has a high motor. It's a funny combination. Like he never, he never seems like he's jittery or unsettled. Like he just seems comfortable out there. And he's not smashing bats during this, you know? So like, he's just trying to figure it out. Xander Bogarts is gonna be on your list. Xander Bogarts, the Xander slander continues.

Projected 113, he's got a 72, so about 41 points off. Cedric Mullins on the run. Right next to Randy Rosarena. The surprising guys that were projected really well and haven't been quite there yet. Yoran Alvarez projected 166. He's been a 126. He's not crushing you.

If you have him, he's just not doing quite what you expected. And I think he'll get white hot. I don't know if it needs to be white hot, but I think he'll just, he'll have him on three hits like 14 homers or something, you know, like, he'll just, he'll just have one of those, like he'll go on a bender. Yeah. Uh, how about this one?

Julio Rodriguez, a 134 projection has a 92 so far only four homers and 249 plate appearances. Yeah. Trevor May was talking a little bit about, you know, the approach against Julio Rodriguez and, uh, how they're pitch, pitching him more inside. Um, and he likes inside, but he's there pitching him sort of further inside than he likes. And it's, he's not able to turn into power. Uh, and he's swinging,

missing more. I mean, there's, there's something there. I don't think I'm worried either. I'm not still from a fantasy perspective, he's still stealing bases. Uh, from a real life perspective, he's still playing center field from a underlying perspective. He still has a plus plus max EV. The barrel rate is down, but you know, like when you think back to that barrel rate chart that we put up earlier, like, you know, some guys just go up and down. You know what I mean?

Like Corey Seeger, 9% barrel rate in April. That's not great for him, but it's okay. 25% in May, you know, this is Corey Seeger, established baseline guy, you know? So I feel like, you know, you look back at this season for Julio Rodriguez, maybe what we're learning is that Julio Rodriguez is streakier than we thought. Yeah, maybe a little streakier than a typical top five pick. Yeah, cause you'll look back now at 2022, 2023 and 2024

and see more up and down than maybe you'd expect from someone with that much talent. You know, I also just noticed on that list Vinny Pasquentino being up in barrel rate from April to May. A guy coming off a major injury like that where timing and just trusting the health of his shoulder. Yeah, that's that makes me feel like he's back. That yeah, that's that's encouraging to see, right? Maybe I'm fitting a narrative to the numbers a little bit But I think if I had any reservations about Pascu Tino coming off the first month of the season those are quickly fading Seeing how much harder he was hitting the ball and how much more he was barreling it over the past month

Other notable names here that are significantly underperforming. My glaver is down there I'm sure not as bad as you think he's a minus 29 so he he's in the group of players you'd expect to be a lot lower because it's not pretty. It's like two 29, three 10, three 27. He was probably only projected to be like a 109 or 112 or something. Projected to be 18% better than the league average. He's been 11% worse.

And he seems like he's putting it back together a little bit here. Um, I think Austin Riley projected to be a 133 down 86 injuries have been part of it But three homers in 42 games that's been frustrating He's up to up to 10% barrels and in May Randy Arosa Raina who's come up a few times had a 123 WRC On a 16 league like what are we thinking about him? I think he's established himself as a streaky player. He has, you know, he chases outside the zone a lot, at least he has in earlier parts of his career.

He also has some sort of high-low issue, where like, right, like look right now, 46% fly ball rate in most of his career, you'd say that'd be good for power, but it's not. It's the second worst barrel rate of his career. I mean, he definitely has I think he has like, Oh, let me look. I think he has two swings. I'm not sure it'll show up in the in the data. It's not like an ESAC parade is two swings. It's like, I think he has two shape swings almost. Mm-hmm.

But yeah, Arosa Reyna, do you think he's, is he a by-law for you? Even though there are some flaws, I think he is. I think the main reason is he's a five category guy when it's working, which means he could be a three or a four category guy even when it's not. I know that 162 average is brutal when you're doing that in an everyday role. That's taking on a lot of water, as we like to say for the ratios, right? The boat's in trouble. But the K-rate is still, it's kind of at the higher end of what we've seen from him before.

He's not chasing at more pitches outside the zone. And he's still hitting kind of the lower end quality contact range we've seen from him before too with the hard hit rate. So everything is just enough within reach or I think there's a good chance Randy can come back and, and meet rest of season projections. Rest of season projection say he's the same guy. Generally you see 13 to 16 homers, 13 to 19 steals and because of how much they play him, really nice running RBI total.

So yeah, if I'm playing for right now, keeper of dynasty league and someone says this is my off ramp, you know, I think Randy was a short peak player and he's just not quite going to get back to that level. I think I'm on the other side of that one hitting the accept button, trying to, to get what should be better days ahead for the final four months. Yeah. Interestingly enough, um, Randy Rosarina, Corbin Carroll, Trevor Larnock, Tommy Fam, Mitch Hanniger, and Lars Newtbar are all in the same place when it comes

to, um, value to date. Um, they are very vastly different players, but, um, when it comes to value to date. They are very vastly different players, but I think it is interesting to have a group of players that have struggled and yet are basically close to replacement level. I mean fams doesn't really count cuz he doesn't play as much maybe larnac either but At least when you're coming to like Rosarina springers right there Rosarina springer Corbin Carroll Lars new bar these are guys that have struggled even Horace a layer They're all around replacement level which means that even at their worst You can stick them in your lineup. It's kind of like you said earlier a 70 WRC plus in a bad month is respectable It's not the end of the world even for two months. That's where Randy Arroz arena has lived so far

Yeah, I did look at his bat tracking. He does have three different swings by bat speed distribution And I think that's what I see when I see Randy Rosarina when he's at his best. I think he's anticipating what pitchers are trying to do to him really well and putting the right swing on the right pitch. And when he's not, he's just discombobulated. He's in between.

Uh, uh, 46% fly ball rate is really weird for him. And I just don't think he's that type of power hitter despite the fact that he has plus plus raw He's never had, you know, the plus plus barrel rates. He's always had like decent barrel rates So I think he should maybe you know sort of even that out Maybe hit a few more brown balls and get on base and run around a little bit, you know Yeah, I think it's a good target. This is the point now people start to lose the faith a little bit more. One month of this wasn't enough.

Two months, I think you're testing people's patience in a way where you can actually go out and get a deal done and maybe get a decent discount relative to the draft day price because expectations are tumbling and that batting average is so brutal. The 162, 263, 310 for a guy that that popped up a little later, little unexpectedly like that. That makes people nervous.

But at 29, like I think you are better off doing that than say a George Springer who has to be, uh, has to be another one of the ones that's bad against his preseason projections, but is 34. So of course you're much more worried, even though it's so strange to see, you know, foot speed still there. Walk and strikeout rates fine. Uh, but the ground ball rate being high and the raw power is just gone.

He's he dropped five miles per hour off his max TV. Springer is minus 29 as far as his WRC plus so far compared to his projection. He was projected for a 112 by the Bat X. Kind of in the same neighborhood as Bo Bichette, who's a minus 25, Paul Goldschmidt's a minus 25. I think it's okay if you're minus 20, minus 25, and you were supposed to be well above average,

like a Matt Olson or a Tatis, the panic level, pretty low. If you were supposed to be well above average, like a Matt Olson or a Tatis, panic level pretty low. If you were supposed to be like 10% better than the average and you're running 20 to 25 under, then we have more questions like, uh-oh, is this the beginning of the end? Alex Bregman is in that category as well. Kind of looks like he's heating up right now though, doesn't it?

Yeah. You're just seeing those signs of life right now where if you were about to make a trade to move away from Alex Bregman, these last handful of games probably are holding making you hold on just a little bit longer. I took one point out of my caught looking column last week about about Bregman and we had this conversation about mechanics and he's always telling me like this is off or this is off or this is on or like he told me before a pretty Legendary hot streak you'd last year the year before like I'm about to I figured it out I'm about to go hot and he went hot and This time he told me

that he's like Casting too far forward with his body like his like he's like his he's he's shifting his weight to his front foot too early. And that's actually causing his his contact point to be deeper because his hands like his shoulders ahead and then his then he's bringing the bat around. Anyway the thing that might be interesting to people listening trying to do analysis like this on other people and on a Rondy or Andra Roserena is that he said that pull percentage Bregman said that pull percentage is a really good way to approximate contact point. And we've seen that from some of the research into bat speed. We've had to adjust our bat speed for pull percentage to try and get at that contact

point. But if you see somebody whose pull percentage is way off of their norms, then that means they've lost their contact point. Now I think the suggestion here, what's weird is pull percentage is something that's supposed to become stable, you know, a month or two into the season and so predict the rest of season pull percentage pretty well. But even stability means that there's noise going forward. It means you start incorporating what they've done instead of just saying league average, you know?

And I think from what I'm hearing from him is this is something you can change. Like contact point is something you can change. That sounds right to me, actually. Contact point is something you can change because contact point is timing. And timing is something you can change as a hitter. And so Bregman has been really aware of that. He said he's trying to release the bear a little bit earlier and do things to change his contact point.

And yeah, I think he's on a little bit of a mini Bregman. I think he'll be who he is going forward. And I think that a Rosarina can do that, too. So in the past, I've looked at poll percentage and been like, Oh, it's stable, quote unquote. And. You know, I don't know for for a Rosarina, that doesn't actually describe much. His poll percentage is right in line with his league average.

But for Bregman, it was a big deal. Yeah, and if you take a look at it, I didn't get this done ahead of time because we just kind of came out of this organically. But Alex Bregman, if you look at his rolling 15 game average at FanGraphs for his pull rate, you see some pretty clear ups and downs, a pretty big dip in the second half of 23. And that's kind of where he started most of 24. But now he's getting back up into the good pull rates we've seen from him.

And you can kind of tell when he starts pulling the ball more, you tend to get nice jumps in production from him as well. And you can do a really quick year to year changes, leaderboard on pull percentage on fan graphs. Kristen Yellich, the biggest increase in pull percentage. Mm hmm. See, Yellich pulling the ball is always the thing that we're looking for, right? I mean, looking for a lot of players, but when he's pulling the ball, especially in

the air, then things are clicking for him. Soto, Conforto, Rooker, Veerling, all on this list. Gunner is even on this list. Some ones that may turn it around, that look good in this analysis are Olson. Bogarts was actually pulling the ball more. Maybe that was actually bad for his approach. I mean, he's always been kind of a spray-it guy guy Dalton Varsho somehow is pulling the wall more anyway not pulling the walls much Anthony

Volpe is the largest decreaser I think in his case we could see that maybe his contact point was too out and far far and out in front because he wasn't he doesn't have great raw power and so he was just getting a lot of strikeouts for it Mookie bets Huge decrease in pull percentage Lane Thomas. Maybe Lane Thomas won't get the power back Andrew Vaughn, how could you pull the ball less? I don't know. He's on this list Julio Rodriguez Chas McCormick Bobby with jr. Ozzy Albie, so it's not, it's not something that is, uh, Glebert Torres is on this list.

It's not something that's obviously bad, but I do think for people that want to pull for power for power hitters, that might be where Xander Bogarts is not necessarily a power hitter, but I think for power hitters, you want to pull the ball. I think if you drafted Lane Thomas expecting all of last year's power to stick, you were setting yourself up to be disappointed. But what's been amazing so far, most people dropped in for some legs. Yeah, they drafted for like a maybe almost like a discounted Randy Arosa Raina profile from a Roto perspective. Like give me a little bit of everything and a ton of playing time.

And other than the injury, I think that's been like completely sound logically, he's got derailed by that knee injury. He's 15 for 16 lane. Thomas is in 30 games so far that's running a ton. I mean, I'll take it. You're going to cut my home run total maybe in half for the season, but you're going to double up on steals. Okay. That'll work.

We'll make the adjustment for that. So yeah, lane Thomas might be some of that actually trade for right now. you're going to double up on steals. Okay. That'll work. We'll make the adjustment for that. So yeah, lean Thomas might be something I'd actually trade for right now. If I couldn't get Randy Rosa ran, I wanted a similar player lane Thomas, especially if speeds, the area of weakness, which is the case for good teams. Yeah. But a little less on the power 10 to 12, the rest of the way for homers, but a lot more speed seems possible. Long episode today.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed it. A lot of players. A lot of players to cover and unexpected news up top. What can you do? TheAthletic.com slash rates and barrels. Get a subscription. If you don't have one already, find Eno on Twitter at EnoSaris. Find me at Derek VanRyper.

Find the pod at rates and barrels. As we said up top, join the discord. The link is in the show description. That's going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels. We're back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening. Bye!