Rates & Barrels - AL LABR Draft Recap

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Fresh off of drafting his AL LABR team, Eno discusses his process and assesses his results, and he and Al talk about some of the more interesting winning bids. Rundown 1:33 What did Eno take away from his title-winning 2022 season in AL LABR? 5:53 Eno talks about his preferences for his endgame players 8:05 Eno discusses how he allocated his budget 12:35 Al asks Eno about some winning bids that surprised him 25:03 Eno and Al talk about some of the players on Eno’s roster 28:29 Eno assesses his draft 39:05 Takeaways for mixed league managers Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Al on Twitter: @almelchiorBB e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome, everybody. Happy Monday. This is Rates and Barrels. I'm Al Melchior in my usual spot. Eno Saris with a different background, a different location, reporting live from Florida. Eno, good to have you here on the East Coast. We're going to talk about what you did there in florida last night uh your ale labor draft um so we'll we'll dig into that moment i'm not gonna talk about everything i did last night that would be that would be bad yeah that'll be a separate episode uh so yeah this is just gonna be the AL labor stuff. Sorry to disappoint everybody. So before we get into that, just a reminder that yes, the 2023 Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit on The Athletic is live, has been live. You can access it on The Athletic and you can access it for $2 a month for the first year by going to theathletic.com slash rates and barrels and look for that.

Look for that deal gets you not just the draft kit, but of course, everything that is there on the site, which is a lot of great stuff. So, you know, let's before we dig into the specifics of what you did for the 2023 draft. Now you were you were the title winner right you were the champion for uh 2022 am i remembering that correctly and uh points champion i've never i have the points record for labor i had 11s and 12s in every category it was pretty awesome whoa that is domination so i think a 108 or something wow Wow. Wow. Well, all right. Given that dominant performance, were there things that you did differently, things that broke the right way, whatever? What lessons learned from that season, if any, did you take into last night's draft?

Every year is different. I mean, there were a couple, actually. This is the one big one, I think. So I prepare for this it's an al only league and one of the things that i do to prepare for an al only league is to uh describe the bottom of the player pool and and what i just have i have a tab on the excel sheet that's uh dollar days you know what does the dollar days look like what are the what are the worst players in this draft look like? We all know what we'd like about the best players.

What do the worst players look like? And what I found was I had a list that was maybe 10 strong of guys that I thought would be dollar outfielders that would play. Not necessarily every day. That's asking a lot of a dollar player. But like a lefty and a strong side platoon. Since the draft is over, I can share some of those names with you. But just generally, I was happy with how robust this list was.

Kyle Stowers, Robbie Grossman, Kyle Isbell is, I think, the default center fielder there with drew waters hurt drew waters himself was a interesting dollar guy because you can you could with these rules are a little bit complicated but you can stash il guys a little bit better we have unlimited il so buying drew waters uh for like a buck or two and then putting on the il was part of my strategy i didn't do it but it was one of my strategies that I was thinking about. Jake Myers, Michael Taylor, Nick Matone is playing a lot. And then Matt Veerling is playing a lot in Detroit. And Matt Veerling is more exciting, I think, than Nick Matone, but Matone also has 3B eligibility. And then Gavin Sheets. And I even

think Raimond Tapia might make the Red Sox. So there's even a couple more. Trevor Larnock doesn't have the role, though. There was just more sort of prospect-y, might make the roster there. I mean, to contrast that with my list of first base dollar guys, Franmil Reyes, Ryan Noda, Nick Prado, and Kyle Manzardo. Kyle Manzardo, we're not even sure is's going to play this year in the major leagues. So that was the entire list of my dollar. I mean, you just put Dermis Garcia on there

who didn't get drafted. But it's a very small list at first base, even smaller at short. And so I leveraged that to make a plan that was, last year, I had Steven Kwan in reserves and Josh Naylor for a dollar in a similar way. And so this year, my dollar outfielders, due to this strategy, ended up being Matt Vierling for two bucks, Kevin Kiermaier for one, and Aaron Hicks for one. And I think just due to the contract status of a guy like Kevin Kiermaier for one and Aaron Hicks for one. And I think just due to the contract status of a

guy like Kevin Kiermaier and Aaron Hicks, the way that they were recruited to their teams, respectively, the amount of contract money left on Aaron Hicks contract. I think those two guys get the bulk of the playing time, at least the beginning of the season and in a model league playing time is everything. So when you're talking about dollar players, I mean, are you talking about that they actually went for a dollar in the draft or this is who you had projected as a dollar player? It's people that I thought would go for a dollar or would go in reserves. I mean, it's not something to nail down very easily.

I mean, Matt Veerling went for two, so it's not like a strict number. It's just another way of saying dollar guys is late guys, you know, just like, you know, you know, late round guys or whatever. It's it's the, the guys that I thought would go, basically, it's the guys I thought would go for a dollar that would be worth more than a dollar and would be useful to my for my plan. So I was to start with kind of an overview of your team, but since you focused in on the dollar guys and that was a key part of your approach, I did have a question about Vierling and Matan because I saw that you rostered them both.

And I've looked at them as late rounders for some drafts. And I just think, God, that move from Philadelphia, that really doesn't serve them well. But again, we're talking about dollar players and then AL only drafts. So you can't ask too much of these players. But do you target more that type of player who has a role and can accumulate some plate appearances?

Or do you get more speculative? Or is it more of a blend when you're looking at your end game players uh in terms of guys that i'm putting on my major league roster i don't do a lot of speculation i'm not trying to do a lot of speculation um i'm always tempted to be like oh let's check it like a three dollar prospect and and then put them on my bench and and go on to waiver wire. But the waiver wire in these are awful. The waiver wire in an AL only league, this is a 12 team AL only league, the waiver wire is just putrid. And so since the waiver wire is so bad, I am targeting guys that I think will play. Bierling is having a hot spring. He looks great. I don't know how much that matters

to me. What matters to me is that he has 13 plate appearances. Um, and that's as much as one less than Spencer Torkelson, you know? So, um, you know, I, I have, uh, I think he's going to make the team. Matan, I think, uh, only has, he has 13 plate appearances to, uh, yeah, this, he has the same amount of appearances. He's not playing as hot. Um um i think there's just a little bit of a role for him on this team because he plays the infield and they lost guys like harold castro and uh heimer candelario and uh so for me nick matan is their backup shortstop and may even be their starting third baseman. And so that's two really important places on the roster that should require plate appearances. And that's what I'm trying to buy is plate appearances.

Okay. Okay. Well, if we look kind of more globally at how you put this team together, it seems to me it was more of a spread the wealth approach, but did you have an intention going in in terms of how to allocate your money, how you just went about building the team? Well, this is the first time I ever bought a $40 player in A-Labor. I think it's like my 10th or 11th year. And so Jose Ramirez was an interesting buy for me. One thing about auction dynamics is that almost always you have a value sheet, and then the first round players go for a premium over that value sheet. I don't know, something about the way auction calculators work,

they just never bake in that premium for the top players. And so you can just – there's a lot of people uh who play the middle and i've done this a lot where you just like i'm on like three second rounders you know and i'll just buy those guys at my prices and i won't have a first rounder the problem is i think the premium top end talent sometimes just goes beyond you know it's just it's just worth it and for me uh jose miras went at a three dollar premium over my values and and $3 to $4 is the normal first-round premium. There were people that went for more than a premium of that. And it was the first player that I threw, and I won him,

and he was the third baseman who stole bases and hit homers. It was pretty much perfect. The only problem is batting average, and he's a lefty who pulls the ball a lot. So I'm hoping for like a 275 batting average and he's a lefty who pulls the ball a lot so i'm hoping for like a 275 batting average for him this year and uh so it was a that was that was a little surprising to me i hadn't meant to do it and in fact i kind of wish i didn't in some ways because rafael davers went for 30 dollars and he actually went under the values i had. So no premium, you know, the air sector didn't have to pay premium, just got him for 30.

So sometimes patience is a virtue. I did not exhibit a whole ton of it in this draft. Though I'm just surprised to hear you say that because like I said, with the exception of Ramirez, I didn't see any, you know, splurging above and beyond. And even $40 for Ramirez to me just struck me as, again, baking in that $3, $4, sometimes $5 premium. That seemed very reasonable to me.

I was actually sort of surprised that Aaron Judge also went for $40. I think they were the two most expensive players. I thought he would go for like $41 or $42. That's what Mike Trout in his prime was going for 42 43 dollars uh in draft so i thought we had that situation with judge but maybe uh one thing i did notice uh relative bargains in the draft i i did a sort between my values and what they ended up going for and the relative the the biggest relative bargains are all uh the top three are just really obvious jacob de grom tyler glass now lance mccullers big injury uh uh discount on those guys and uh you don't even know to trust

your values on guys like that and it also it's it's so like the team jesse roach put jacob de grom and tyler glass now on the same team um and so that's just, it's kind of insane, but it's awesome. And if it works out, he could win in his first year in the league, which would be, I'd be very jealous of that. It took me 10. Yeah. I guess I'm rooting for Jesse because this is the guy who put deGrom and Joe Musgrove together in TGFBI.

There you go. He's comfortable with risk. And it's possible that we all, we think we have a bunch of healthy pitchers and we are not clear eyed about our own health risk. But the other two, the only other two sort of first round talents that, that didn't have a premium on them.

So the biggest, biggest, have a premium on them so the biggest biggest uh biggest values at the top end were uh vlad guerrero jr uh for i think 35 instead of the 37 on my sheet and raffy devers for 30 instead of like the 33 or 34 on my sheet i think the vlad guerrero jr thing is just a very temporary blip that someone took advantage of uh because the news on his knee is pretty good and he's just going to rest a little bit. And if he misses the WBC because of it, it'd be great. I think it'd be good for him, you know? So sometimes you have these like short term values on guys because of very

recent injury news. That's not actually as bad as it seems. Yeah. Yeah. You can. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. actually as bad as it seems. Yeah. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton bike or bike plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access memberships separate. Terms apply. Treat yourself to Tim's new fudge brownie lattes. Made with freshly ground espresso beans, frothy steamed or ice chilled milk, and topped with marble chocolate curls.

Now that's music to our ears. Available hot or iced only at Tim's. Take advantage of that. I'll ask you about a few other players just from the draft at large, you know, since we've brought up a few, you know, I already mentioned Judge, but Astori Ruiz at $15 really surprised me. Did that surprise you? Is this a valuation that we should take to heart going forward in our own drafts? There was a premium on steals generally. For example, I had Tim Anderson as a $24 player. He went for $27. I had Randy anderson as a 24 player he went for 27 i had randy rosaranda as a 27 player he went for 30 uh marcus simeon 26 29 so there was basically like a three dollar

premium on guys that would steal a bunch of bases that's why i was happy to get cedric mullins at 28 because i had him at 28 so i didn't pay the premium and got my numbers. But Estrella Ruiz, on the other hand, the value sheet had a $12. Somebody paid $15 for him. You know, that's the sort of going premium for steals in this draft. And he obviously has the upside to, you you know win you the category by himself like that's the kind of speed history reese has and we've seen it in spring where like you know uh fielder's choice gets him on first and he's in he's on second after two pitches uh he is definitely

gonna uh to to steal as often as possible i just don't have much confidence of that. So he's sort of 240 batting average, 280 OBP and like a three, three 80 slugging at most, maybe 375. So that's not a very good player. And it's not someone I want to bet on. I have my biases that I'd like to bet on good hitters and I'm not sure he's a good hitter, but he will steal a bunch of bases, so I can't hate on that price too much. Well, yeah, it surprised me because I have probably no more

and maybe less faith in Ruiz as a hitter being able to hit major league pitching than what you just described, and you can't get the steals if you don't get on base, as far as I i'm aware so uh that well like i said fielder's choice and he's on first maybe that's the ticket for him then uh all right let's uh talk about uh a pair of relievers and there's a number of these situations uh where it's not necessarily clear who's going to be the

primary closer or if there's going to be the primary closer or if there's going to be a primary closer and actually there's another one of these situations that you drafted into that we'll we'll get to in a while but the the mariners andres muñoz uh went for 13 paul seawald went for 10 on one hand i totally get that because muñoz is by the numbers the better reliever and yet seawald is the incumbent I've seen it reported that he's going in with the leg up on the job. So while I do think Munoz is, like I said, the better reliever, I think the numbers tell you that,

that if you have an incumbent who goes in with the first real shot at the job and that he may be the second best reliever in the bullpen, but he's still very good. It might not do anything to shot at the job. And that he may be the second best reliever in the bullpen, but he's still very good. It might not do anything to actually lose the job. So how do you see that Mariner situation? I do have Munoz with a projected 197 ERA and a 37% strikeout rate. But I also have Paul Seawald with a 255 projected ERA and a 37% strikeout rate. But I also have Paul Seawall with a 255 projected ERA and a 34%

strikeout rate. So they're both just very good. And I think the usage history points at Paul Seawall, honestly, because I think they're totally comfortable with having a young guy, because I think they're totally comfortable with having a young guy, maybe keeping him cheap for arbitration or just, you know, blow away the middle of the lineup in the seventh inning, whatever it is. They seem very comfortable having Andres Munoz as the, you know, emergency button reliever. You know, we need these outs right now. And having Paul Seawald be the guy who has a much more, you know we need these outs right now uh and having paul seawald be the guy who has a much more

you know knows when he's going to be in the game he's a veteran you know uh just a more obvious and regular role uh you know munoz is the the fireman uh that's that's how they were last year and even in the playoffs even in the playoffs, even in the playoffs, there were times where they went to Seawald as a closer and Munoz as the 10th inning guy or the 8th inning guy. So I think that's why I'm betting on Seawald over Munoz, necessarily because of stuff. Let's go to a similar situation, and one that, by the way, came up on last Friday's episode with Greg Jewett.

We talked about the twins. And again, you've got apparent co-closers. Actually, it seems like more of a co-closing situation with the twins than with the Mariners. You got one of the co-closers there. You got Yohan Duran, but also Jorge Lopez went for just $6. And that's a situation where Greg,

he described that situation, you know, exactly the way you described the Mariners, that you have the more skilled guy who maybe is at a disadvantage because of past usage patterns and because of arbitration manipulation, basically. So what was your thinking in rostering Duran? For me, the difference between the distance between the two

relievers is, uh, is bigger, uh, between you're comparing Jorge Lopez, uh, you know, like the distance between Paul Seawald and, um, so joan duran as a 248 era with a 32 strikeout rate so it's a fairly that's a bigger difference and i think he's just the better pitcher uh there were some reports of during lopez's below being down the spring um he hasn't been the healthiest guy in the past and uh if there were 30 saves in Minnesota this year, I'm giving 20 to Durham. Yeah. And I'd like the idea of putting a guy that might even have like a sub-two ERA

for 60 innings on my squad. So that was the thinking with him. I will have to say, I wasn't super excited that Felix Bautista went for the same prize as Duran like a couple rounds later or a round later. That upset me because I assumed that Felix Bautista

would go for 18 and that I had just saved $3 with Duran. When they went for the same prize, I would rather even have Felix Bautista at 16 than Duran at 15 because with Felix Bautista at 16 than Durant at 15. Because with Felix Bautista, it's very obvious that he's there. And I think some of these health things are temporary. Yeah.

Well, and I hate it when that happens, you know, so I get that. It's so much of the auction dynamics. I sort of hesitate to put too much weight on these values, these winning bids when they're close like that within a couple of dollars, because so much can have to do with what portion of the draft you're in and who needs what. So don't want to put too much weight on any of that. I want to talk about another aspect of the draft here, and that is rookies and players that maybe won't start the year in the draft here. And that is, you know, rookies and players that maybe won't start the,

uh, the year in the major leagues, Grayson Rodriguez, I think, you know, probably has a, an excellent chance to be in the opening day rotation, but he went for $14.

Anthony Volpe, five Oscar Colas for Taj Bradley too. So what was your thinking when, you know, those kinds of players came up high end prospects that prospects that maybe have a little bit of risk involved? Since I'm so focused on buying plate appearances and innings pitch, I don't usually buy those players. And, you know, I prefer to maybe take a shot in reserves

or see if there's a dollar prospect. So for me, that ended up being like Addison Barger in reserves just because middle infield eligibility for a team that is veteran at the big league level and could get hurt, and that would create a space for Barger to come up. I know the team internally left him out of trade offers and not necessarily untouchable, but not somebody they were trying to move.

And so that seems to me that he's important to them. He's playing a lot in spring. That's the kind of stuff I'll do. When you're actually using actual dollars, tell me again who you were talking about in particular. All right. Well, really, I had a whole list. Grayson Rodriguez, Anthony Volpe, Oscar Colas, Taj Bradley.

Probably have left one or two others out, but those were the ones that struck me. Yeah. I mean, like Volpe, for example, I mean, he does have time, and he is at a position of need, but he went for $5. Just to talk about some players that went for $5 that I had. Even on his own team, Oswaldo Cabrera went for $3 and I think might have more playing time. Josh Donaldson went for $4,

is probably going to have more playing time. Who's another $5 player? Brandon Belt. So these are guys that you know are going to be playing. Leote Tavares went for $4. So a lot has to go right for Anthony Volpe to be worth more than Leote Tavares this year. I will tell you. Yeah.

I was just going to say, my reaction in seeing that price is I wonder if there was some Yankees inflation. It just seems like in whatever league you're in, I'm not looking at who actually took Volpe. It's a big prize. Like starting shortstop for the Yankees, you assume good runs in RBI. It's a good park. You know, you assume that that's a big prize but i do think sometimes our eyes get big at this what could go right oh my gosh it could go right and then i'd win the league you know that's a little bit how you end up i think with glass now and de grom on

the same roster where you're just like oh but if it goes right, and they say, okay, but, you know, safe and steady does win the race a lot. Yeah. Well, and I thought Barger, on your part, was an interesting choice because it's, you know, a similar type of speculation, but much more cheaply. I was sort of surprised to see Colton Couser not get drafted among that group. And just a little bit of shameless self-promotion here.

So I recently wrote a piece for The Athletic. Seven projected everyday hitters who I think could either lose their job or at least lose a substantial number of plate appearances. I think Austin Hayes is one of those players and Kauser's a big reason why. I mean, if he gets promoted at some point in the season, who's going to make way?

Hayes, to me, looks like the most reasonable, most likely candidate. Um, yeah, I mean, there are projections, uh, for Hayes that are below, uh, below average, and he's not going to add a lot of value with the glove. Um, and so, you know, the, I think the problem was that there was a bet in this league on Kyle Stowers being maybe the guy who gets the first chance. And there is a certain amount of order to things where, you know, the older prospect who's closer to having, you know, being out of options and that sort of stuff, they have to get the chance first. You have to know if Kyle Stowers is worth anything before you

can move on to cows or, you know what I mean? Like, uh, there's like, there's like roster rules and also just sometimes like, um, order of point of order, just like how things work so that other prospects know, okay, I will get my chance. This is an organization that gives everybody a chance in, in a certain order. Um, and so I think Stowers, I think there was a bet in the draft room that Stowers was going to be maybe next in line. And that was enough for people to kind of stay off of Couser. Okay. Well, yeah, that logic certainly makes sense.

So let's put the focus on your team, you know, defending champs, although obviously a different roster. And so you've already mentioned Jose champs, although obviously different roster. And so you've already mentioned Jose Ramirez, your $40 buy. You also mentioned Mullins, who you got at $28. Shane McClanahan will be the anchor of your rotation at $26. And Jeremy Pena, $20. I think those are your $20 plus guys. So that's why I thought, okay, this is a kind of down the middle approach here. But going into the mid-range, Ramon Laureano, I thought was interesting at $13.

And you and I talked a couple weeks back about the new rules and the impact on stolen bases. I don't think Laureano was a player who came up then. And I saw him on your roster and thought, you know, I think he got a raw deal in terms of power last year. He's got some raw power that didn't totally translate in the in the surface stats does he become a 20 steel guy a potential 2020 player with the new rules yeah there's something about the way the a's are stacking up that i'm wondering if they're just going to be the go-go a's like you know you've got ruiz there bl Bleday's got some speed. Nick Allen, Tony Kemp are the projected starters up the middle.

They don't have a lot of things going for them other than speed. And I don't think you worry too much about running into an out in front of Seth Brown. I mean, literally, Seth Brown is the biggest slugger on this team. Um, and so, uh, I don't think you say, Oh, I don't want to take the bat out of Seth Brown's hands. I think you say, Oh, maybe if I'm on second, Seth Brown can knock me in, you know? So, uh, I, uh, I thought that the team situation, I also just know like personally from speaking with Ramon Laureano and just

how it's gone in the past for Oakland, he's going to try and play his way out of Oakland. Like that's like, I don't even have to tell you that I talked to him about this, right? Like it's very obvious, right? Like,

Oh, Ramon Laureano, he's the last veteran on this team. They're not going to, they're not ready to be good yet. You know, he's going to be a free agent in 2026. So if they trade him this year, they actually can sell him as a guy who has a couple of years and going to be cheap for a couple of years. He's only going to

be paid, uh, uh, 3.5 million this year. So he could totally like a contender that needs outfield needs speed and, uh, is close to luxury tax could totally add him. So I see him as being motivated, and that's also from conversations. He's motivated to get out of there, so I think he could play well. And then he just represents a good bounce-back opportunity, and that last year was his worst year all around, and he had an established track record. He's 28, so I'm not asking a 33-year-old to bounce back. I'm asking a guy in his prime to bounce back. And all those things combined

led me to think this is the best way for me to shore up my steals. I think getting my steals from Laureano, Kiermaier, Mullins, Pena, and Ramirez, I think I got enough. And sometimes I'm behind on steals. So I tried to kind of overshoot the mark a little bit. And I think I've got a hundred plus, I usually go for like 80 plus, and I'm trying to break in the fact that there would be, you know, 20% more steals in baseball this year. All right. Well, we've talked about some players on the high end, just one middle range player.

We've talked about some of your dollar players that you got. How do you feel about the draft overall? How do you feel coming out of it? What buys did you really like? Were there any you didn't like? I think given what people were spending on middle infield, the fact that I got Jeremy Pena for 20 and JP Crawford for five made me feel good about making sure I have starting players at those positions. And Pena, I think actually Pena and Crawford both offer a little upside in that Crawford makes great contact, has a good play-to-play approach,

has some speed, and trained a driveline in the offseason. If he added any bat speed, if he had just added any bit of power, we would think of J.B. Crawford differently, I think. I think there's some upside there. And then Jeremy Payne is a young player that could play better next year. So I like that. My corner infield situation I'm not as excited about because what I identified a bunch of players that go below their values traditionally at first base, and they did end up doing that. And so you see players down lower, like Jared Walsh, but I have Jared Walsh, Nate Lowe, Vlad Guerrero Jr., Brandon Belt, Jose Miranda, Ty France, Josh Naylor, and Josh Bell,

all going for less than their values in my sheet. And I saw that going in, that that was going to be an opportunity. What instead happened was I got Nate Lowe for $4 less than my sheet, which sounds like, yay, I got him less for $4 less than my sheet. I could have gotten Josh Naylor for $3 less than the sheet, and he would have been $14. Now, gotten josh nailer for 14 there's a pull everything lefty that could benefit from these rules uh then i would have had more money and i could have got juan mancada instead of spencer torkelson at corner infield and i'm super nervous about spencer torkelson at corner infield i hate that pick it is the pick I hate the most in the draft of my draft. I have so much riding on Spencer Torkelson and it sucks.

I don't have any reason that I've looked in his numbers to be positive about what he's doing this year. He's not playing well in spring. I do think he'll get opportunity. That's good. But I tried to cover my ass a little bit by taking Nick Matan in reserves because he's corner alpha corner uh eligible and from mil reyes in reserves he's not corner eligible yet but i'm hoping he plays some

first base uh and and gets some corner eligibility and or becomes a player an everyday player and i can maybe trade him for a corner because i'm already worried about corner because of spencer corner because I'm already worried about corner because of Spencer Torgeson. So that Spencer Torgeson for 10 was my worst buy, I think. Okay. Yeah. And sometimes we just get boxed in where, yeah, we have to fill in a mono league. Sometimes you're just left with choices that you don't like. Let's just focus on your pitching a little bit since we haven't talked too much about that. So again, you've got McClanahan. You've also got Jeffrey Springs, Nathan Ivaldi, Kyle Braddish, Spencer Turnbull, and Shintaro Fujinami.

And we've talked about a few of those pitchers on past episodes as being kind of your guys, like Braddish, Fujinami, Turnbull, Blackburn. You got Paul Blackburn as a reserve round pitcher. And then we talked about the fact that you got Yohan Duran for $15. And then the remainder of your relievers were pitchers who more profiles like long guys. So was that an intentional thing? Is that something you looked to do going in? Or was it more like, well, the saves dry up quickly, so let's get ratios and

bulk innings? What I think, I don't know if I'm right, but I think I correctly identified from the beginning was that the nl uh pitching pool has um more top heavy you got strider woodruff verlander scherzer like you got all these guys and it's amazing and you know sanny alcantara it's you know alcantara is so great and in the al you've got garrett cole and shane mcclanahan and then it starts to kind of like, oh, am I going to do? And so I thought going in, maybe I'm going to do like Luis Castillo and Christian Javier and get them both for like $20-ish. Because there aren't as many top guys, Christian Javier went for like $26 or something. And I was like, oh, crap.

That's out the window. And Luis Castillo went for like 26 or something and I was like wow crap like uh that that's out the window oh Luis Castillo went for 26 and I was like hoping to get him for 24 or 22 or three so I was like oh well that plan goes out the window I had Shane McClanahan for 29 I got him for 26 and I was like that's cool but the rest of my plan was always to wait because the middle of the AL is okay. And I think the DH was a big sort of, okay, the whole playing pool, the whole player-pitcher pool, it's all equal now. And so middle AL pitchers used to be people were afraid of them because of the DH. You know what I mean? They're going to get blasted. With the new ball and the

DH being in both leagues, I was just like, you know what? I'm fine. Springs, Eovaldi, I got him for a discount. It was obviously the injured player discount. He's not injured yet. He's throwing 96 plus in camp and that's good enough for me. But I was like, I'm hoping for 120 innings. I'm hoping for like 150 from Springs. I'm hoping for 180 from Shane McClanahan.

I'm hoping for 140 from Braddish. So I bought my innings, and they were innings that I was like, when these players are pitching, I think they're going to be good. My model says they're going to be good. None of them are Garrett Cole, and I kind of wish I just went the extra dollar on Garrett Cole. But I think I gathered enough innings together with this crew, and all of them have roles in rotations to begin the season.

None of them are hurt yet. So that was the point. And reserve, I got Paul Blackburn zach grinky and mitch white who are all either fifth or sixth starters uh who pitch uh blackburn and grinky in particular pitch in parks that are great um that you know so i could labor has these weird rules where you can only have a guy in reserve if you draft him in reserves anyway i can kind of stream cranky and Blackburn. Okay. I can put them in when they're home and then reserve them again because I

bought them in reserves and that's super, super valuable. So I expect to get maybe, you know, 50 to 75, maybe even a hundred innings combined from Blackburn and cranky by doing that. So the,

the reliever strategy, I just think Rinaldo Lopez is going to close. I think he's better than Kendall Graveman, and I think he's better suited for it because he's more of a strikeout pitcher. And I know I've said on this podcast that I think Jonathan Loizaga is maybe the handcuff for Clay Holmes, and that I've been nervous about Clay Holmes being a one-pitch pitcher against lefties.

Michael King is really good. And I'm not sure if he's necessarily the handcuff or if he's just going to steal some two-inning saves or steal some wins. But I kind of just see him as like the Chad Green era. It's like this guy's just going to have really good ERA, pitch a bunch of innings and and get me a bunch of wins and maybe a couple saves like he's gonna have more than two dollar value at the end of the year i'm pretty sure so i was just like you know that's glue he's he's my he's my stretch glue guy you know he's the he's the guy i needed and uh i i think that serves me better than than throwing another dart at someone who might be a little bit more likely to close than Michael King.

I just was like, Michael King is good. That's what I wanted to know. Yeah, I like that. And I hadn't been thinking about King that way, but I like that way of thinking about him, that he could fill multiple roles. But kind of almost the worst case scenario is that he's the Chad Green type. And I liked getting Chad Green in AL only and in deeper leagues. There was value there. There was innings. roles but kind of almost the worst case scenario is that he's the chad green type and i i liked getting chad green in ale only and in deeper leagues there's there was value there there was innings good i preferred to get him for one but you know at the end you're i think that might

have been one of my last i think i might have just jumped in him and just spent my last two dollars or something but it was it i didn't i didn't regret that going to two on him. I know that I am different from the industry on... Kyle Braddish has more supporters. There's a bunch of supporters for Kyle Braddish. I'm not the only one. And Spencer Sternbull is not actually sort of like a model thing. It's just like, hey, he pitches in Detroit and he was good and he's healthy now.

I'm cool with that. Shintaro Fujinami is not somebody that pops in our model because we don't have stuff plus for him he pops in a theoretical model in my head which is i watch him and i'm pretty sure it's high stuff you know like i can't wait until he pitches in front of the machine we'll have some spring training stuff numbers for you shortly but um you know uh i i think it's stuff. And obviously it's poor command. But they promised him a slot in the rotation. It's Oakland.

It's a great park to pitch in. And I've got him for a dollar. So that one's a very – that's my prospect. You know what I mean? That's my, like, shot in the dark. You know, like, I don't know, maybe. $1? Yeah.

And if he doesn't work out, what I can do, what I've set myself up with, with Paul Blackburn and Granke, is I can drop Shintaro Fujinami and pitch Blackburn and Granke alternately in that spot. And if both of them are on the road or have bad matchups or I don't want to pitch them, buy a $1 reliever and throw them in there for a couple weeks. And then, oh, Blackburn's at home against the Rangers or whatever. Yeah, I'm throwing him. So I'm hoping that was my plan. It was sort of a three-way plan. Fujinami, Blackburn, and Granke all sort of giving me one okay pitcher. All right. Well, this is going to segue me into the last set of things I want to ask you about, which is that not everybody that's watching or listening plays in a monoleague. And what you're talking about there with having a plan for the back end of your rotation, I think that's something that's valuable for all of us, regardless of what kinds of leagues we play in.

play in uh were there other things that you could take away from this draft um whether it's this one or you know years past that you feel uh provides useful takeaways for those of us who play more in mixed leagues well you know there's the obvious like injury premium what one thing i did notice was um there were so many different strategies in this draft that uh there was no real oh this is where the value is sort of moment where you could be like like there almost wasn't like one takeaway like for example there's always value at the end of the draft where you get like a four dollar player for one dollar that that happens all the time and that happened in this draft four uh four dollar four maybe five dollar bailey ober for a dollar uh i got a five dollar kiermeier for a dollar um you know there but there's fewer of them than i thought that was it that was the list of $1 guys for five that were worth $5 or more.

But, you know, there were also guys that went for, you know, three, four, five that were worth more than that. But the,

you know, the strategy of like, Oh, I'm going to save some money and then I'm going to get all these values at the end. So many people are doing that, that there weren't, there weren't, there weren't, there weren't these like super obvious pockets of value.

It was, uh, so I was very aggressive and went out into the beginning and just got the players I wanted for the most part and then had to sit back. And I had this long list of outfielders, uh, to choose from. And I got sniped on some of them.

Like, you know, I wanted Robbie Grossman, uh, you know, to,bie grossman uh you know to to pair with my matt veerling uh i thought i wouldn't might get gavin sheets or jake myers so you guys or jj of the day guys that would uh that would fall into might fall into everyday roles um i didn't i didn't i got my plan worked i got players slightly different than I expected. So I guess, you know, and then I saw a really interesting,

we had a class in session with Errol Cohen who taught us about auction strategies. And I think if you want some takeaways, if you're in your next auction, you want to think about it. When the auction is hot and people are over your values, you just want to buy someone that is over your values less. And when the auction is cold and people are going for undervalues, you want to buy as much as possible. And that's a pretty easy takeaway rule. And I tried to follow it, But, you know, it's not always easy to execute every plan. But, you know, those are just some things I was thinking about. There's an obvious,

in a two catcher AL only league, there's an obvious premium on catchers. So I ended up with Jonah Heim and Mike Zeno at my value. I didn't pay any extra, but I also have uh you know one of the worst catching tandems in the league so uh you know which is quite an achievement yeah right uh but uh yeah there's premiums on speed there's premiums on health and there's premiums on catchers if you're going to go into a mono league uh those are things that will probably be true in your auction that you're about to do. All right. Well, that's great stuff. And your point is also well taken that Ariel's advice is great, but if you do wind up being

really aggressive early, then it's kind of hard to get all those players that are going at a discount later. But what you're approaching, where you said you went aggressive early on a few players, but what you're approaching, you know, where you said, you know, you, you went aggressive early on a few players, but then you just sat back. I have found that when I've done that, that's usually when I wind up with my best teams. So, uh,

but every, every auction is different and that's always important to remember. It's a, sometimes way too much writing on ESOC parades and Spencer Torkelson. This, uh, to get comfortable. So we'll, we'll see how this goes i

don't i'm not predicting a repeat but uh uh but it was it was fun nonetheless and and if you haven't done an auction uh i recommend it they're they're a bit of a bear in terms of like you're you're tired at the end of it you're physically exhausted from thinking so hard uh but it is a cool combination of trying to understand uh like it's a little pokerism where you're like you know you're trying to see tells and you're trying to understand what people are trying to do with their drafts but you're also really focused on your team and what you were trying to do um and you're just you're thinking about a lot of different things at the same time. And it's super enjoyable. And this league in particular, we've been playing together, you know, for 10, 11, 12 years, a lot of the same players. And so I kind of, you kind of know tendencies and you're like, oh,

that was such a Jason Collette buy or like, oh, totally a Larry Schechter buy. So that part adds joy to it over time. Yeah, that's just such a great part why we do this, because you play in these leagues for years and you get to know people, and it's a really, really fun part of it. So while we've got more drafts coming up, of course, things are still sort of on the early side here. So with that said, just a reminder that if you want to reach out to us

for questions before your upcoming drafts, you can send us an email at ratesandbarrels at gmail.com. You can find us on Twitter. Eno is at Eno Saris. I'm at Al Melchior BB. And you can also just ask us questions here on YouTube. If you're watching this on YouTube, ask in the comments section. So lots of ways to reach us with all of your questions

and check out Eno's work and the whole team's work here at The Athletic in the draft kit. So with that said, good luck in your upcoming drafts and we will be back here again on Tuesday. Yeah, I'm traveling,

so it's going to be a weird schedule. I think you're going to hear a guest from with Chris Welsh on the on the prospect show. We've got an interview banked for Thursday with driveline director pitching Chris Lang and that I'm really excited about. There's, I think that might set people thinking on a lot of different, uh, pathways. And, uh, then on Friday,

uh, I'll be back, uh, uh, for a regular show with you. So, uh, thanks for listening. Thank you.