Rates & Barrels - A Prospect Promotion In July, Building Midseason Momentum & A Fast Decline

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

Eno, Britt, and DVR congratulate Jayson Stark for his induction in the NSMA Hall of Fame, and discuss the arrival of James Wood and the intriguing timing of his promotion by the Nationals relative to the league's tendencies to promote top prospects. Plus, they discuss a few teams attempting to carrying the momentum of strong June into the second half, before discussing a handful of players they are interested in seeing during the Futures Game, and the swift decline of Tim Anderson.  Rundown 0:44 Jayson Stark Inducted to the NSMA Hall of Fame 4:00 The Nats' Decision to Promote James Wood on July 1 14:02 Whose June Momentum Will Carry Into Second Half? 25:23 The Cardinals Are Quietly Hanging Around & Pitching Well Recently 33:28 Futures Game Rosters Released 39:42 KBO Regular Season Games in Theaters?! 44:01 Tim Anderson DFA'd by Marlins; Why Did He Decline So Quickly Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us Wednesday at 1p ET/10a PT for our weekly live episode with Trevor May! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's Tuesday, July 2nd. Derek the Ripper, you know, Sarah's Richie Rowley all here with you on this episode. We dig into some recent runs. Whose June momentum will carry into the second half. We're going to talk about the futures game rosters for a bit. Those were released on Tuesday morning. Got some interesting stuff happening in Korea with the KBO that we're going to talk about

later in the show. And Tim Anderson has been designated for assignment by the Marlins. But today we begin with a couple of news items. First and foremost, one that you may not be aware of. Our friend Jason Stark was formally inducted into the National Sports Media Association Hall of Fame. So congratulations to Jason on that well deserved honor. I think Jason's one of those writers that has weathered

being a baseball writer for his entire career in the sense that Jason's one of those writers that has weathered being a baseball writer for his entire career in the sense that Jason's still happy and positive, right? So many baseball writers reach the later years of their career and you feel like the beat or the just the coverage of the game has kind of made them cynical. Jason's not like that at all. Jason's fantastic. And of course, he's still podcasts on the wind up feed feed that the three of us used to be a part of each and every week on Monday. So be sure

to check that out. But a well deserved congratulations to Jason. Yeah, total total role model for me and just really, really happy for him. And yeah, I do. I've seen a lot of beat writers, you know, kind of get beat down by the sport a little bit. And I wonder, you know, sometimes it's the nature of the the the medium. Like when we publish negative stories, we get more feedback. So sometimes you just focus on the negative stories when you're writing. And the more negative stories, right, the more you kind of be like, wow, this sport is messed up. you kind of be like, wow, this sport is messed up.

But I think sort of the wild and the weird, like the, you know, the the big Jason Stark column that he's been doing forever kind of allows him like a little reset. You know, I think that's been part of the secret is just being like focusing on these cool things that happen that don't happen that often. And, you know, kind of celebrate baseball. Yeah, I guess so. I echo everything you guys say.

I want to chime in real quick. No one works harder than Jason Stark in the playoffs. He is in the press box. He files his stories at like four and five in the morning. He is up there writing from most writers will have a semblance of what is you know they're gonna write where they go down. He oftentimes because his columns are so unusual does not and he is consistently the last one to file the story but will never never like mail it in right he could be done it too but that's not him. You will work till four and five in the morning for a game that started at seven pm that we. that we were probably there at two or three just to look up that one last stat. And I don't want people to miss that about him how hard he works how much he cares about every single line in that column.

Yeah, what I like about it too is like it's evidence based journalism in a way instead of just being you know sort of waxing poetic about a moment he often gives you the context of how often that's happened or that's this rare or this or that. And that's what takes such a long time is he has to kind of do all that research. So I think that's really cool. Yeah, it is really cool. I think it's much better. You have a choice in life. You could see the unique and the good and the fun in places, especially sport.

Right. You can choose that if you want to, or you can look at the things we complain about and focus entirely on those. So if you have a choice, I think the Jason Stark choice is the way to go. Other news in the baseball world, James Wood Day was July 1st. Didn't have July 1st, 2024 down on my calendar as a day that any top prospect would debut in the big leagues. And Britt, you were on hand for this at Nats Park. And I think it's interesting because we've done a better job in the sport,

I think, of incentivizing teams to move players up closer to the time when they appear to be ready. We have the compensation now for where players finish in rookie of the year and a couple little incentives, little carrots for teams to be less manipulative of service time. And even with that, we have a new sort of calendar that sort of dictates when a lot of guys get their opportunity. So I'm curious, what led the Nats to make this move right now? They're six below 500 entering play on Tuesday, so it's not necessarily a team like right in the thick of the playoff race, but they're not out of the wildcard race in the NL either. So that's just kind of the first part of this. Like why the timing?

I'm excited to see it, but I was just surprised. Yeah. Well, the Nationals have never really given a whole lot of thought to like, hey, can we keep this guy for longer under team control? They feel like if that player has shown that they've conquered that level, and to be clear, James Wood led all of NAF's minor leaguers in batting average, OPS, slugging, all of that. He was also second among all minor leaguers at all levels in all of those things. So really he had nothing left to prove.

They felt like a triple A. And their lineup up until about, you know, the last week they had been playing pretty well. They really hit a wall. They felt like we need a jolt, we need a boost. And these prospects have a way of giving a team that energy. And you know, I saw it before the bullpen blew that game. The Nationals were winning. There was, you know, a lot of ovations.

People were excited about every at bat on a Monday night game. And it felt like the atmosphere was different in that ballpark. So I think they thought he has nothing left to prove up here. It doesn't help us at all with him putting up these numbers at AAA. Let's call them up. Let's see how this team plays because they are, like you said, one of those fringy teams that in the next month are going to have to decide, are we really going for that third wild card team spot or not?

Right? And I think either way, either decision, the Nationals, I was looking at their lineup last night, guys, they're a young team all of a sudden. They have almost changed over from, let's get some warm bodies up here to you look around The Nationals, I was looking at their lineup last night, guys, they're a young team all of a sudden. They have almost changed over from, let's get some warm bodies up here, to you look around the clubhouse and you're like, these guys are going to be part of the next group, the next like group of, you know, Nationals teams. Like they are the future.

Are they going to pan out or not? Nobody can tell you. But you look around this room, Mackenzie Gore is starting last night's game. CJ Abrams is at shortstop. They've got Caber Ruiz behind the plate. You know, they have, you know, all of these young guys, Jacob Young, that you're like, okay, this is, this is it now for these Nationals. Like, this group that they've been waiting on, and there's still some to come, the Dillon

Cruzes, the Cakovallis, Brady Houses, there's still like a group to come. But a lot of these guys have graduated and Wood kind of symbolizes that one big piece because he could be a superstar. You know, he's a guy who could easily steal 40, 50 bases a year and hit 40 home runs. He's a little bit of a freak and you don't really realize that guy so you stand next to him. He's 6'7". So he just doesn't look like, you know how Aaron Judge and Stanton, like they don't look like baseball players? He doesn't look like a baseball player

either. He's just a terrific physical specimen. And I think, you know, when you watch the Nationals, they kind of thought, you know, this will inject life into our team, this will inject life into our fan base, and this guy is ready. So for all those reasons, they did it. And it doesn't really matter to them that oh You know, maybe this you know impacts He's probably not gonna be able to be no rookie of the year any of these things They've never put a whole lot of stock into that. They called up Bryce Harper at 19 They called up Juan Soto when they needed him and Juan Soto didn't even start the game

He debuted and he entered in the middle of the game They have never really played any of those games in terms of let's maximize under the rules how long we can keep this guy or what it will get us. Yeah and there's like a numbers based argument for doing this which is that they have surprisingly the top ten pitching staff by Fangrass War and I think there's been a real surprise maybe from you know some of Sean Doolittle's leadership in the coaching staff some fruition of some players some savvy moves there Mackenzie Gore just taking another step forward like whatever it is they've put together a surprising pitching staff and it's been the hitters that have

been behind. You know, on the year, it's a bottom 10 lineup. And so you say, well, you know, it's not going to maybe it costs us one year at the end, but maybe we're actually in it right now. We just don't know it. And the reason the way to get in it is to improve our hitting. The best way to do that is just call up our young guys. And so I think there is some risk in terms of they could have kept him in the minor still

September and tried to get the rookie of the year thing next year. But who knows? You guys have come up, if he comes up in July and just tears the cover off the ball, maybe he wins rookie of the year. And so maybe that was part of the discussion they had but in case. They let a lot of those other incentives away and said that the real incentive for us here is to make the wild card the real incentive for us is to start being competitive there's another thing that's funny is that people talk about. There's another thing that's funny is that people talk about, you know, like, you know, fans and like, you want fans to come to the table. What you've seen maybe in Baltimore is a little bit of like, it's taking a while for the fans

to come back, even though they're a great team, they have to kind of undo some of the damage of the bad years. Maybe in Washington, the idea is we want to have as few bad years as possible because we want to keep fans coming to the table. And so we we start, if we are a little bit better this year, it's more likely we have more fans next year when we should be a little bit better, you know? And so it's a little bit of sort of managing your brand, um, as much as it is trying to be competitive and doing the easiest thing possible,

which is call up a great prospect and improve the worst part of your roster. I can understand why teams try to maximize the long-term club control. Sure, I get that. But if part of the goal of your organization is to make money by having fans and part of your goal is to win and actually be a good team,

maybe not even this year, but next year, letting James Wood have a half season to make adjustments against big league pitching probably makes him a better player in twenty twenty five. So if he's up and up for good, if it's not a he's overmatched and goes back down situation, which is possible, you never know. You're just leaving the door open for more good things in the long run by doing this right. And I also think you leave the door open, at least in the case of some players, to possibly

work out a long-term extension later if you're not playing these service time manipulation games. This is a working relationship where if you do right by the player, that may actually lead you to something better for both sides in the long run as well. So a lot of ways where you could see it working, we talked yesterday just about the differences between the AAA strike zone and the Major league strike zone where the triple A zone with ABS is lower and James Wood being 6'7", especially, may have some adjustments to make against high fastballs. So we'll see what happens in the first few weeks of the season. Are

our teams going to just fill up the top of the zone with a lot of VELO and see how he handles it. But I'm really excited to see where it goes. And correct me if I'm wrong, was the giveaway last night a James Wood t-shirt for his debut? You know what, guys, it was. I got one. You have it gave us one. Hang on. I got one for those of us viewing. This is incredible.

I didn't think they'd give it to us in the press box. It's also nice quality. It's the breaking t-shirts. So it just says like, welcome to the show, James Wood. I mean, so this is, this is what I think teams, the team, teams should be doing this. The league should be doing this. This is a way to kind of build up that hype around young players and it's deserved. We're talking about one of the top prospects in baseball in James Wood. If we're bringing up a 26 year old journeyman reliever, I don't know if we're doing a t-shirt

release for that player. It might be kind of cool too, just another reason to go. Everyone likes a free shirt. Drew Maggie t-shirt. Yeah, right? That's a fun story. But I think this is for some people is, oh, come on, he hasn't done anything yet. I'd throw that aside. This is something that you're excited about for the long-term. So you should get people more. Look, oh, come on, he hasn't done anything yet. I'd throw that aside. Like, this is someone that you're excited about for the long term. So you should get people more. Look, I saw the standing ovation for the first play to parents. People were pumped. And you're right, on a Monday night, you don't always get that.

So this is a team that I think is ahead of schedule in the rebuild. We kind of asked that question on the pod maybe six or so weeks ago, and they've continued to play a little better than expected. And I think the pitching coming through, the work of Sean Doolittle and that staff there, it's a lot of things all coming together. And of course, this player, James Wood, being part of that massive Juan Soto deal, being another hit for Mike Rizzo in the front office has also helped speed up this process in a pretty big way.

The downside, of course, they didn't win on Monday night, lost an extras to the Mets, and the Mets are one of those teams that I think everybody wants to just bury them and write the eulogy and say it's not gonna happen for them this year. But they're 19 and 11 in their last 30 games. They're sitting at 500, and even though the NL East is currently in control for the Phillies,

13 game lead over the Mets, I think the Braves are eight back entering play on Tuesday. The Mets are still in that wild card race. And as we know, Steve Cohen is not afraid to spend money. So the Mets could easily be the kind of team that if they play well from now through the deadline, maybe they're absorbing some payroll and just saying,

hey, let's roll the dice. Let's see what we can do. Let's see if we can make the playoffs, get that last wild card and be one of those anything can happen sort of clubs. The stories are fun. I mean, I don't know if you've been following at all. Like Grimace.

Grimace? Yeah, Grimace, like what he threw out a first pitch and they've been great ever since. There's like the Gay Mets. There's a meme where they've been like great ever since, ever since like a Pride night I think. Oh really? Yeah, there's like all this, there's all these like things.

Oh, and then Jose Iglesias, did you see this? Yes! He's got a song. He hit a song out and he performed it on the field after a game. There's some whispers that like, you know, not everyone on the team is in on it, but you know, because there's like this bus picture where like, you know, Brett Beatty is in the back looking sad or something. But you know, you can't, all you can do is party and invite everybody to the party. And you know, maybe,

maybe there are some tighter factions in the Mets clubhouse than there are. It's like that in every clubhouse. There are tight parts and there are less tight parts. That's fine. What it does seem like is that the kind of the rally monkey, the rally monkey is awake, like whatever it is, the kind of the rally monkey, the rally monkey is awake. Like whatever it is, the narrative, the like fun things that kind of, that feed into one of those seasons where you're kind of surprised by the outcome.

Those things are there. I wouldn't say necessarily that this is an amazing team, but it never was a bad team. And, and you know, one of the things that they do need to fix, I think is pitching and on the hitting side, I think for the Mets, they, you know, for the season are, have the fourth best WRC plus, there was a lot of sort of belly aching about the offense. It's a little bit more about can they call up, um, you know,

some pitchers will Christian Scott deliver? Can they make some, some differences? Can Edwin Diaz, uh, you know, come back from suspension and find the level he hasn't found this year. Those are kind of the questions for them, but maybe, maybe they end up being a buyer and buying a rental pitcher or two. Yeah. It's so interesting cause they're doing this without Diaz and Kodaisanga and they, you know, obviously sold off all their spare parts last year at the deadline. I was saying to someone yesterday, I was in that clubhouse, the vibes are definitely good.

You know, you can just tell when you're around a team that like is buzzing. I'm not surprised that they won a bunch of games because they were so bad in stretches early on that you're like, okay, eventually they're going to have a good week. I am surprised, as you said, Derek, that this is now a 30 game sample size. They are now playing at a pretty impressive clip and you look at it and after the Nats series, they end it with the Rockies and coming out of the breakday at Miami. So this is like a nice part of that schedule here for them to, you know, all of a sudden pile on and have 25, you know, 25 wins over this stretch, 28 wins over this

stretch. Like, you know, their schedule is really good. You go, they go from there, they play the Yankees after that, but they've held their own against the Yankees, a two game series against them. So you know, they aren't as bad as I think they looked to be, especially when they got off to that really brutal April start. Um, and I think they're a team that still has a lot of talent and we forget that because they sold so many pieces. They still have a good core group.

And you know, yesterday the news that Brandon Nimmo slipped and couldn't play, you know, he was in the ER. It was so scary. That's something that like in the past would be like, oh, Mets, and then they go out and they lose 10 to nothing. Right. But then last night, they get their bot, they're from behind, they come back and they tie that game. Then it goes to Extras and they pile on Hunter Harvey and they make it nine to three. Like these are things that kind of show you what kind of team they are. It would have been very easy to fold last

night. The first like seven endings of the game just felt like it was going to be all Nats. They had nothing going, you know, and then they take out Gore, Derek Law comes in, lets a bunch of runners score, and the whole tenor shifts, and the Mets just, you know, pile on. And I think those, without Nimmo, like, you know,

and without some of these key pieces of their teams. And I think that really kind of shows who they are a little bit. So are they gonna go out and win the division? Probably not. But if I'm David Stearns, I'm looking at this team and saying, why can't we be a wild card team? Right? I don't see how they're any worse than some of these other teams that are competing for the NL wild card right now. I don't. Yeah, they belong in that conversation for sure. I wonder if they're going to rely on some more of their young pitching. I mean, Christian Scott should spend the rest of the season in this rotation

based on the alternatives, what he's done in the upper levels, the minor leagues. But they got two more guys, Blade Tidwell, who they promoted the triple A a little while back and then Brandon Spro, who started the year at high A, now is at double A, pitching really well. So they might have more big league arms coming. And Budo's been kind of an up and down guy for them throughout the pitching really well. So they might have more big league arms coming and Budo has been kind of an up and down guy for them throughout the year as well. So, I mean, they, they have a little bit of boost in that pitching staff potentially already on the roster in the organization.

So I think that makes them a little bit more interesting than people would have thought at the beginning of the year as well. Yeah. Some all eyes turned to the pitching development program in New York that's supposedly improving. And it's like, well, we need to do we need to do it earlier than we thought. So what you got and if Kristen Scott was already, you know, a really nice eye opening low low pick, you know, that they kind of

optimized in their way. Budo has got a great change up. Dediel Nunez is a reliever that's come up and been great, has a really great fastball. So we've seen some inklings of this. And if they do succeed, then kudos to that group. You know, it goes all the way from they've got a lead bio mechanist that I put on my, you know, rising up and up and coming group of people. Ben Hansen is the director of performance technology.

They have Eric, Eric Yeager's on this. There's a lot of good names here. And here's a funny little story from the Mets too. JD Martinez gets activated and starts looking at the hitting groups meetings and the hitting plans. And raises his hands and is like, can I give some suggestions for improving these? And kind of overhauled the hitting plan. And ever since he's done that, their hitting's been better. I love Jilly Davis, fellow Jamaican, but does not speak so well for what he was doing before.

JD Martinez. What is nice about him is he's come through a couple of organizations that may be at the forefront of game prep. So maybe he's a little bit of experience, a little bit of what he likes to see. He also supposedly brought a bunch of weighted bats to the Mets to help improve improve their bat speed. So, you know, JD Martinez plus pitching program equals profit. I mean, it seems like it didn't take a lot, but it's just, it's at least a small step further than they would have been without those things, right?

So you got to look at that and say, okay, things are a little bit different. And then the grimace, like I can't explain exactly what grimace is or why grimace is even, but it's working for them right now. And I was, there was grimace. I don't think it was the grimace, but there was a grimace pounding beers in the, in the console, on the concoct. It was not the grimace. That was someone in a grimace suit, I think.

Incredible. But still, yeah. Where's your husband? He's dressed as grimace at the Mets game. Yeah. Oh, the one pounding beers? Yes, the one pounding beers. I saw a gif of another grimace,

maybe it was the same one that was pounding beers, just gyrating wildly on the concourse. Like to the point of Sarah Sanchez at the Tweet, years just gyrating wildly on the concourse. To the point of Sarah Sanchez at the tweet, she's like, what drug did you give Grimace? And it was like a fair question because it was rave Grimace, I think, at the ballpark. But hey, the Mets as a good vibe team right now,

I had the same thought just like a week ago, like this team has good vibes. That's not normally how we describe them. Says a lot about maybe some of the personnel they've got, Carlos Mendoza being maybe the right fit as their manager. I mean, imagine this team, like, I don't know what the impact of a manager is on each individual clubhouse,

but I know managers have an impact. And you think about the difference in the vibes right now between the Mets and the Cubs, and you think back to the off season when we were all sure that Craig Council was the manager that was going to be going to the Mets. It's just weird. It's just one of those things. Would they be the exact same team with Council there? Probably not. Maybe there'd be different strengths and different weaknesses, but one of those random things. At the time, I think people thought, oh, we missed out on Council.

We settled for our second choice. Now, maybe you got the right person in the job with Mendoza. I do want to be clear. I'm still a talent over vibes guy. Um, I have to say the met the, the Yankees may not have the vibes. I mean, we've got, uh, uh, judge yelling at Marcus Stroman in the, in the dugout because Marcus Stroman yelled at Gleyber Torres, um, and, uh, just a whole a whole, a whole, the vibes in New York may not be as pristine on the other side and with the Yankees, but the talent is still pretty good. The wins are in the bank, you know, and I have this, I did a really quick

bit of research here where I just looked at who has the most ready prospects. here where I just looked at who has the most ready prospects. And so by ready, I mean, 2024 debut on Fangraphs. They have like a little when is this prospect gonna debut? And I only counted prospects that were 40 plus values. So at least around average or better. And it's the Cubs first, which surprised me. And then the Yankees and Cardinals and Blue Jays are all tied with them. I don't know what that says.

Maybe that says the Blue Jays don't trade away their studs and go for it again next year. That's sort of my lean when it comes to what the Blue Jays are going to do. But it says good things for I think the Cardinals and Yankees, as in if somebody goes down, we've got a bevy of guys so we can call up. And this seems to be it's something that I think matters, especially in like August. You know, you want to win games in August and you want to make sure that your studs are healthy for the postseason.

You're going to make it. And the easiest way to do that is have ready made prospects ready to go. I'm glad you mentioned the Cardinals. I mean, there's five teams that I put on our sheet for today that have had good stretches of the last 30 games. So basically, June, maybe a couple of days before June. A lot of teams played 25 games in the last month, but the Astros 19 and 11 in their last 30, only three back of the Mariners right now in the West. We never, we said that they weren't this bad.

Right. We wondered if they weren't the same caliber team they had been in this recent, unbelievable stretch of success. And I think that's still a fair question to ask, but they could absolutely win that division. Three games is nothing with half a season to go. The Cardinals. Yeah, I mean, it's a series. They could play each other and the Astros could flip it

in one series. Cardinals are only six back of the Brewers in the NL Central. They've played well. I think they've got the best record in baseball since Mother's Day. That's the one that keeps it. Every time the Cardinals win, someone tweets that. Like, Cardinals have the best record in baseball

since Mother's Day, but they've been playing really well. 17, 13 in their last 30 there within striking distance. The Red Sox, they're eight and a half back of the O's and Yankees who are tied in the ALEs, but they're at least in the wild card hunt. They have played better in the last 30, 17 and 13. And the Padres, who I thought would have like an 18, 18 and 12, 19 and 11 stretch in their last 30, there's 16 and 14 in their last 30. They're only seven and a half back of the Dodgers. They're still in the wild card hunt. And I think part of the momentum

around the Padres comes from the firm belief that they're just going to keep adding. They're not going to pump the brakes. It would take the worst July imaginable for them on the field, for them to change course and not keep pushing chips in. I also think that there's a sense that like they haven't actually all been healthy at the same time yet. You know, Mamachado has been dinged up. He started the season with the elbow surgery and then he's had the hip flexor. You know, that's part of why

he's not running as hard as possible. He's but he plays through injury like he always has. But he hasn't been himself. Fernando Tatis Jr is on the IL currently. Xander Bogart's fractured his shoulder is on the IL currently. Joe Musgrove and Hugh Darvish have been on and off the IL all year. So for them to be where they are with all that being true, I think is part of where the optimism lies as well. Yes. Now I agree. AJ Proler will do something is like, you know, the motto of the pod. You know, but at the same time, you know, to, you can kind of faith cast your way through this and be like, Oh, well,

Jackson Merrill has really emerged as like a great young player what happens we get cap cap persona back what happens when we you know what happens we get all these guys back. And they're healthy and then he maybe ads. bag of tricks. So I think this is the sort of exist and don't drop too far down part of the schedule. And they're hoping that there's more of a thrive coming soon. Agreed. I mean, and this kind of speaks to the talent versus vibes debate. They were a more talented team with Juan Soto last year, but the vibes weren't as good, right? So like, they seem like a team who, as you mentioned Machado very quietly is starting to look more like Manny Machado now

He had a monster series in Boston Profar as we talked about in a few episodes back has had you know a season that nobody expected from him as well You know, we didn't expect for him to play this big of a role Jackson Merrill So I do think that you know the Dodgers I think everyone thought would run away with the West. And if you look at everything that's happened, it's a catchable thing here as we sit here, and it's only July 2nd, right?

If you can close the gap to four or five games heading into September, you feel pretty good about that if you're the Padres. You know your GM is going to be active. You know you're going to add. So I think that they have one of the more, because their roster is so talented, and you know that they're gonna get a little healthier,

that they have one of the more sustainable June stretches where it's not like, oh, they played over their skis in the month of June. No, I think I could see them riding this wave for quite a while because of the names they have on that roster. Yeah, I know.

And to flip it back to the Cardinals, one thing that's really interesting to me is they have not done it with hitting. In their last 30 days, their slash line is 249-303-394, which is below average for the Cardinals. What they have had is the fifth best pitching staff, which I don't understand how. I guess I don't understand. I guess Lance Lin has a 386 ERA in the in the month. Miles Michaelis has been okay. Ryan Helsley has been, you know, pretty awesome. Kyle Gibson has been surprisingly good. I guess you know just everyone's been Okay, Andre Palante has been above replacement like

Everyone's been alright even Matthew Libertor in the last in the last month has had a 172 ERA. So Maybe the pitching staff was not as bad as I thought it was but I will say that if we have to pick a paper tiger in this group, to me, it might be St. Louis. It might be, I mean, I think it's, it's gonna come back down to a few different things. It's gonna come back to your faith in either Paul Goldschmidt or Nolan Aronato rebounding partially. It's been a half season now.

And I think with Aronato, we've talked a lot about our concerns, kind of going back to the back injury he had late last season. He just hasn't looked like the same player. They did get Wilson Contreras back from the IL. That's a pretty big lift for the lineup. It is surprising if you take Contreras off the top of their hitting leaders, Alec Berlison has been their best hitter this season by WRC plus. I thought it would be, if it wasn't one of the old stars. Brendan Donovan has been their best hitter this season by WRC plus. I thought it would be if it wasn't one of the old stars.

Brendan Donovan has been second. I mean, those two are surprisingly similar in just sort of like, you know, dirty Jersey kind of players. Sure. But how is it not one of Goldspit, Aronado, or even Nolan Gorman, or at the beginning of the season before the year started, I would have thought Jordan Walker. Jordan Walker was an above average player in the big leagues last year and he's really young. I thought maybe Jordan Walker will break out. I thought there were a lot of ways for this lineup to get better. I didn't think there was even a path for Alec Bertleson, more than a part-time player. So that's been a pretty pleasant surprise for them. And

you know, Newt Barr has been good when he's been healthy, but he's been really banged up. And Mason Wynn, I think, is probably hitting a little more than people expect. He's been 12% better than league average. I think everyone knew, rocket arm, good defender at short, but what are we getting with the stick? 331 OBP in this environment, actually pretty good. Little more pop than expected right now. They need more power to come. I don't really respect this lineup unless one, at at least of Nolan Aronato and Paul Goldschmidt get going and Newt Bar comes back.

Then you can say, okay, we've got like six or seven above average guys and we got a big bopper. And I'm not sure maybe Wilson Contreras can be that big bopper, but I just want them to have Paul or Nolan Aronato back. Or Gorman, I mean, just one of the three maybe. They need one of those guys to kind of step forward. I think that's fair. They are in the NL Central, though, and that helps.

We always got to always got to get that dig in. I mean, it's true. I mean, look at like the poor Red Sox, not poor Red Sox, but they're already buried right in the division race. Yeah, it matters, it matters. 44 and 39. Yeah, the Red Sox are 44 and 39. Cardinals are 43 and 40.

Yeah, the Rays 42 and 42 would be, yeah, would be ahead of the Mets, I guess. Yeah, it matters. Let's get to the futures game rosters for a moment. Are there any prospects in particular that you're excited to see? Because this has been one of those years where there have been a lot of promotions. Like you look back at last year's roster, there were a ton of guys that played in the futures game that have since debuted in the majors.

So relatively speaking, the top prospects group is a little bit thin. I think the rosters are solid. You go back to last season, Jackson Holliday played in the game. Junior Caminero played in it. Cold Keith. We've seen Kyle Manzardo debut now. Jackson Churio played in the game on the pitching side. Things are always a little bit lighter, but even Spencer Schwellenbach,

Kyle Harrison, those guys pitched in the game last year. And well, be Marte Jackson Merrill. So usually we see guys who are on the cusp of the big leagues, even if there aren't as many of them this year. Is there anybody you're hoping to get eyes on for the first time? I haven't seen a lot of Brooks Lee. And, you know, I feel like he's on the cusp of joining that that twins team and the, you know, the twins team,

you know, has always been kind of just a really interesting team. So I just want to see if he is like the other twins in, you know, making making hard contact in the air, what he looks like defensively, where where, you know, maybe we can see some some defensive plays. Marcelo Meyer looks like the future at shortstop in Boston. I definitely want to see him. And then, and then our boy Davison de los Santos, who may not have a position. And that is why he's not probably in the big leagues yet. He's a big slugger for Arizona, who has 26

homers already this this minor leagues. This my league season. I want to see him just because the last time I saw him, I believe either. I think he might have was the winner or was like the runner up in the Arizona Fall League home run derby. And then lastly, Bryce Eldridge, you know, big slugger for the Giants and Tamar Johnson, who there's a lot of disagreement about how good he is. Some people think he's one of the best young hitters in the minors, the second baseman for the Pirates.

Others think are surprised by how much he strikes out. Yeah, I know I mentioned this earlier, but I think Dylan Cruz, the Nationals is someone I'm excited to see everyone that that that Eno mentioned as well, James Wood was originally on that release today, but obviously since he got promoted to the big leagues, they're going to replace him with someone else. And I don't know how many people know this, but Adrian Beltre and Michael Young are managing the two teams. So even if you don't care at all about these young players, like entertainment value wise, Beltray and Young playing together for years Beltray being kind of the clown that he is I think it's just going to be

excellent feeder. Wow, Michael Young has Ian Kinsler as his bench coach. Rangers great like it's going to be really cool you know for people who you know remember you know that that like two three year stretch where they were just a really good team. I do hate that they moved this game to to seven innings and I do feel like with all the All-Star stuff it kind of gets overshadowed a little bit. It's Saturday this year didn't it used to be Sunday the night before right? So I hate that because I was just looking at it and I won't actually be there for it but usually I arrive on Sunday in the morning at the All-Star game and I can go have a beer. No, I'm never assigned to Futures Games and watch the game.

It's like one of my more favorite things to do. But this year they pushed it up another day. Don't love that either. Like, why? Why do we do these things sometimes? I want to just enjoy the game, enjoy all of this leading into it. Do they have something on Sunday besides the celebrity game like what do you does anyone know why they moved it to Saturday this year?

I don't know and it's still seven innings so it's not like they're doing it to make it longer Yeah, I'm not really sure the draft starts Sunday They want to make the draft a bigger deal The draft needs to get out of the all-star week go back to June The futures game the draft is we're gonna see these guys in a couple years if we're lucky draft a bigger deal. The draft needs to get out of the All-Star week, go back to June, the Futures game. The draft is, we're going to see these guys in a couple years if we're lucky. Let's see these Futures guys where a good chunk of them, like you said DVR, are going to be in the big leagues. A good chunk of them people have heard about for years now. Right, that's more compelling than the draft where you're like, okay, now you're going to go away for two or three years and maybe I'll remember you.

Yeah, unless you're at the very, very top of the board. Maybe then or you get directed by the angels and your college player that you can move a little faster as a handful of teams, it'll move you a little quicker. But I think for me, Noah Schultz, the lefty for the White Sox is the guy that I really want to see. He's one of the pitchers in this game. I mean, we're talking about a guy who was drafted at a high school, a six foot nine lefty who's already reached double a numbers have been fantastic everywhere.

He's pitched to want to see it. It's kind of like my excitement for Yuri Perez in this game two years ago now where you just like what does this look like? How overpowering is Noah Schultz going to be? It's going to be one inning. I know it's a showcase, so you might get an extra tick or two. You're not working like a starter. So we have to keep all those to be one inning. I know it's a showcase, so you might get an extra tick or two. You're not working like a starter. So we have to keep all those caveats in mind.

But I love this event. I wish I could just find a way to invite a couple more pictures and just make it nine innings. It seems so silly to cut it off at seven. Yeah, I'm excited to see Emiliano Teodo, who we saw in the Arizona Fall League. I think I think he will be the triple digit star in terms of VLOU

if you want to see some nice radar gun ratings. You're just cutting off a lot of media attention also by having it Saturday. A lot of people don't get in until- Most people arrive Sunday. Yeah. Just kind of unfortunate. Like I said, it's a fun event for me to go

and low key just hang out as a fan and enjoy watching some of this young talent. And yeah, not super excited about them now having the game on a 4pm start time on a set. Oh, and it'll be... no, it won't be up against... will it be up against games? It'll be up against games? Will be up against games. I think they're usually are. They should clear out the afternoon. They should do that just to make it not a problem. But I got to look at the schedule to confirm that. Had an idea inspired by the KBO. Regular season games are being broadcast

in theaters in Korea, which seems really interesting because you can build sort of a community vibe around a game, maybe in cities where it's hard to get to a ball game. So I don't know how often we could do this, but maybe this is something we could try, baseball or any sport in America, because it seems like a fun way to take in a game. We do it in the sense that a lot of times in the playoffs, if your team that you're rooting for is on the road, there's a big party either at the stadium or the arena or in the place near the stadium or the arena or the ballpark.

And you get together and watch it there. You have a watch party that way. But this seems like a little more of a day to day sort of thing that's happening that I thought was pretty interesting. I looked up some numbers and, you know, KBO themselves announced that they had seen they had 8 million people watched KBO last year. They're a country of about 50 million. So compared to us, I'd be as if 50 million Americans watched baseball last year.

We don't I don't have a like to like comparison, but I kind of doubt that we had 50 million people watching baseball last year. We had nine million watch the the the finals, the finals, the World Series, the MLB finals. I've invented a new thing. Yeah, we had we had nine million watch the World Series. I don't know exactly how to extrapolate that, but I kind of doubt that we, that we had 50 million viewers in the same way that they had eight. So it's, it's, it's, um, a smaller country with a more fervent fan base, perhaps that maybe that's part of the, uh, what's going on there, but KBO itself seems to

be in the middle of a kind of a growth period because they talked about they're adding ABS this year. They're also developing an English language feed that they want to put out there. I read that it would be on TVING.com, but as I was looking through there, I couldn't find any English language materials yet. So maybe it's still in development. But the idea I think is with the Korea games that we had, plus some high profile Korean players

in the MLB. And I said the MLB. So that's really- You're on fire. I'm on fire right now. You're just crushing it. Yeah. And that scores some points, guys.

And just the- The head coach. The energy, yeah, the head coach. Just the energy in the KBO seems to be through the roof right now. So they're trying to sort of capitalize on that a little bit. Yeah. I like the first thing I thought was the playoff watch parties you are when we brought this

up. I think maybe opening day would be a cool time for fans who don't or for fans who open on the road, especially, or people who just don't can't get those tickets, you know, where you have little kids, you know, like, I'm not wasting that kind of money. Let's go to the ballpark. Let's watch a few. Let's go to the theater. It's watch a few innings. Kids have their snacks that say seed, you know, I kind of like this idea. Wait, wait, you just you just you just like like spawn an idea for me a little bit.

Of going well, because baseball is kind of like a corporate thing. So why don't they make a corporate deal with Aramark? And all the teams that are on the road on opening day, they basically have a theater somewhere that- Concession, oh. Because now most of those Aramark theaters you can drink beers at. Yeah, and they recline too.

A lot of them recline those theaters. And like how hard would it be to fill? Like those theaters aren't huge, you know? And if we did a- They have a couple of them. Yeah. If you did a first, and some of them might be day games and like might not be up against like prime TV.

And also those movie theaters are looking to fill seats because movies are down a little bit. Yeah, a lot of empty real estate. So gotta fill it. That's a great idea. We did it, we really helped MLB. Look at us. You're welcome. Just fixing the economy one sector at a time.

That's what we're doing here. A hot dog, a popcorn, a theater, and you're watching baseball. I mean, shoot, and like Minnesota, I'd rather be in a movie theater than outside watching that game. That's true, it's also cold for some people. It's also cold in a lot of parts of the country on opening days,

especially when the season starts at the end of March now, seems to be the norm. One more topic on our way out the door. Tim Anderson, designated for assignment by the Marlins. And I think this falls under the category of really fast decline. Age comes for everyone. We know that. But Mike Petriello put the snapshot out there in terms of stat-cast.

I mean, two years ago, Tim Anderson was an all-star, and today he gets DFA'd by a historically weak Marlins lineup, but you look at it categorically, everything has just fallen off. I mean, the quality of contact is completely different. The strikeout rate is up. Defensively, Tim Anderson hasn't been a great shortstop for a few years. So like the glove's been in decline for a little while, but I didn't see this much decline happening this quickly either, even though I would say when Tim Anderson was very good, we looked at him maybe similar to the way we looked at peak Javi Baez and said, this might not age really well. The post-peak version of Tim Anderson might be a challenging player

to put on fantasy rosters or might have a hard time sticking on big league rosters. Are you surprised to see a decline happen that fast and how much of this do you think we should attribute to injury? You know, there was a prominent Sabre magician who some claim is the father of Sabre metrics. For me, that's Branch Rickey, but somebody today was talking about how you know current researchers are too obsessed with the minutia the small measurements and not obsessed with the big questions like how players age things since 1970 so we basically gate-kept was in curious and also said that nothing good has been has been done since 1970 on these things I would point to a 2012 piece by Bill Petty that showed that people pitchers that the hitters that swing outside the zone age worse that's been a big part of Tim Anderson's game. I also noticed some research about hard hit rate and how players who hit the ball hard

age. He had some years where he hit the ball okay in terms of hardness, but most of his career he has been bad at that. And that's not a great thing because bat speed, oh, one of these kind of little minutiae of these small measurements that we do, we now know that bat speed, oh, one of these kind of little minutiae, these small measurements that we do, we now know that bat speed ages pretty quickly after 30. So if you come in with not great bat speed and a poor approach to the plate

in terms of swinging at pitches outside the ball, outside the plate, that combination is gonna age pretty poorly. And that's what we saw with Tim Anderson. You know, there are ways to kind of reverse that decline and work on it. Maybe he just didn't do those things. You know, there's also all sorts of questions about just how this kind of... It was a little bit borderline even at short.

But I will admit that I thought he would end up at second and he would be a good second baseman for a little bit. So I, you know, even saying these things, I would say this is a little bit faster than I expected. Yeah. Statistically, he was the worst hitter in baseball though. And no matter what team you're on, you know, if you're not a young guy and they don't see you as part of their future and you're that bad, you know, eventually you got to cut bait. It's,

it's incredible to see the drop. I thought the Marlins were a weird place for him in general, and just spoke to the fact that he had no real market. I mean, when did the Marlins sign their first big league? Was he their first and only big league signing? Remember the months the Marlins went without anything? And it just felt like if there were any other options on the table that were remotely feasible, given his age and where he's at in his career, now Miami wouldn't have been one. So to me, that was kind of like the telltale sign that like the industry's out on this guy, right? The White Sox cut bait and it was like, couldn't find a home. Then he finds a home in Miami of all places and continues this sharp decline.

So I mean, did I think he'd be DFA this soon? No, absolutely not. But you know, a lot of these things you just don't see coming. And once you look at the Marlins and if they really are trying to play their young players, because this does free up some space now to see these young guys. It just didn't make any sense to have this guy on your roster. Maybe he has an uptick for a week or two, but the underlying signs are he's been bad for a long stretch here.

We are in July. If he hasn't turned it around by now, probably not gonna. It's probably only gonna get worse. And again, he's not a part of your future. I agree with the move. It is stunning what has happened. It is stunning when you look at the whole White Sox Corps and what we were promised and what we thought was going to emerge from that group, which ultimately ended up being

really just an unmitigated disaster. There was a lot left on the table, it seemed like, with the core they had in place a few years ago. But Tim Anderson's DFA, not a surprise in the sense of how bad he was. You're right, Britt. One of the weakest hitters in the game this year and on a one-year deal, the Marlins are just better off looking at some options that could be there in the future, even if they don't find a future regular, just figuring out who's part of the solution is the next

part of their problem. Who is it? I mean, in any of the. Yeah, it's just giving. Yeah, I think it's more to saying, let's just make sure we're giving Edwards, Brujhan, guys like that, the plate appearances, see if they're quality big league hitters or not. And then we'll figure out shortstop later and we'll just know

if those guys are good enough to stick around. I think that's the way they're approaching it. Yeah, I guess, you know, and then it gives them the opportunity to, yeah, maybe even try out a Lopez there. I don't know. It's like, you know, they're just, they don't, I don't think have a true shortstop among them. So that's, that's why I'm kind of like, I think that's why maybe Tim

Anderson even lasted this long is that they were like, who are you going to try there instead? Right. What else are we going to do? Fair question to ask. We are gonna go on our way out the door. Reminder, you can get a subscription to the athletic for just $2 a month, theathletic.com slash rates and barrels.

Find Britt on Twitter at Britt underscore Jeroly. Find Eno at EnoSarris. Find me at Derek from Rhyper. Find the pod at rates and barrels. We're gonna be back with you for our live stream on YouTube at one o'clock Eastern on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.