Rates & Barrels - An exciting Opening Weekend featuring Shohei Ohtani and Yermín Mercedes!?

Episode Date: April 5, 2021

Britt & DVR discuss an exciting Opening Weekend of baseball including the theatrics of Shohei Ohtani in his 2021 season debut, the emergence of Yermín Mercedes, flaring tempers between the Cardinals and Reds, and more.  Rundown 1:07 Shohei Ohtani is Amazing 5:17 Yermín Mercedes Goes 8-for-8 to Open 2021 10:07 Benches Clear in Cincinnati; Is It a Brawl Without Punches? 18:26 An Update on the Nats' COVID Outbreak 23:27 César Valdez's Approach is Highly Unusual 29:46 Making Sense of the Jays' Bullpen Roles 37:36 Berrios vs. Burnes  43:59 MLB Moves the 2021 All-Star Game Out of Atlanta Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic for just $1/month to start: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Monday, April 5th. Derek Van Ryper here with Britt Giroli. A lot of fun stuff to talk about. Opening weekend now in the books. We're going to talk about the feats of Shohei Otani, who had one of the most eventful games I think I've ever seen a player have, especially in early April on Sunday Night Baseball, no less. We had our first benches clearing situation. I don't even want to call it a brawl, but benches did clear this weekend between the Cardinals and Reds. And we had some really big surprises, both in terms of individual player performances, like Jermaine Mercedes coming up and doing some damage for the White Sox,

a great pitcher's duel in Milwaukee between Jose Barrios and Corbin Burns, and a lot of messy bullpens to get to as well. The Nats, of course, haven't played yet, so we'll get an update on their situation. And the All-Star game is not going to be played in Atlanta, so we'll get to that at some point here as well. yeah a lot happened since we last spoke brit uh but let's start with the wonderful feats of shohei otani he threw a 101 mile an hour fastball in his start on sunday

night it's the fastest pitch thrown by a starter in this young season and he also hit a 451 foot home run this could be one of the most amazing things we ever see happen in a game, especially a game that's somewhat meaningless this early in the season. Yeah, and it's funny because it seemed like in spring training, Dirk, every time he didn't pitch well, people were like, well, let's just make him a full-time outfielder, right? We're so quick to be like, well, you can't do both, see? And he showed that you can. And what was interesting to me was that Jared Walsh, who used to be a two-way player, ends up being the guy who wins it. So it was like the night of the guys who can really do everything. And it's amazing to watch. My only gripe here is that the

Angels on the West Coast are still going to miss out on a lot of eyeballs. But you look at that game last night and really look at that whole opening series. And the Angels are just a really fun team to watch. We're talking about the Angels here. And we haven't mentioned Mike Trout. That shows you how fun they are, right? We're talking about other guys here. And with Otani, I mean, it's unbelievable to be able to do what he does, turn around and then hit in that lineup. And Joe Baden said it best last night. He said that was exactly what we had hoped he would do. I mean, that was exactly what we've been looking for, what we've been hoping for. And I think as long as he stays healthy,

you're going to get a show from show every five days. It is remarkable. And Walsh came through with two home runs last night, walked it off in that game. He's among the league leaders in home runs hit since the beginning of September of last season. He's got 11 during that span, I believe. So just an absolute surprise, I think, for a lot of people in that lineup,

which is star-studded now with Otani, with Anthony Rendon, with Mike Trout. Justin Upton's off to a nice start, too. It'd be interesting to see if he can have a renaissance sort of season. I think people in fantasy had sort of given up hope for the most part, kind of a low average masher, but he looks like a younger version of himself. That's certainly a good sign. Having more depth in that lineup is great. And I think there's one guy on that roster who's really overlooked. It's Jose Iglesias. They replaced Anderton Simmons with another fantastic defensive shortstop. Defense in the series as a whole was not good. I mean, there was a play on Shohei Otani's last batter.

I called it a snowball fight on Twitter because that's what it was. Third strike got away from, I think it was Max Stassi who was catching. Ball gets thrown down to first base, goes into the outfield. Ball coming back in, gets thrown over Otani's head. Jose Abreu slides into Otani's ankles. And fortunately, Otani seems to be okay. He's day-to-day with an ankle injury, at least at the time of this recording. But there were drop balls.

There was a fly ball that hit Luis Robert in the head. I think that was on Saturday night. It seemed like there was something with the outfielders not being able to pick up the ball with the lighting and just the way the sky was or something. But defense was not the strength of this series, even though it was a great series, really start to finish and a lot of fun. Rysell Iglesias threw a ball away. I mean, that's what kept the door open last night and kept the Angels from just closing that one out.

Adam Eaton missed a pretty routine ball and allowed it to get by him, which kind of changed a little bit of that inning, obviously. So you're right. It wasn't the cleanest opening series, but it was entertaining, which is what you want. I mean, unfortunately for the White Sox, though, Tim Anderson left that game, I think, was that his first at bat? It was pretty early on. Yep. First at bat. Yep. Right. With the hamstring issue. He's, I guess, day-to-day is how they're going to play it for

now. We're going to kind of see the status of him. What's unfortunate, of course, with the White Sox is already have they absorbed some injuries. Eloy Jimenez, obviously, out for what we think till maybe August or so with that torn pec. So they're already dealing with some issues. Hopefully it's only day to day with Tim Anderson because, you know, we talked a lot about Otani and how exciting the Angels are. Well, the White Sox were expected to be these AL Central favorites, these behemoths, this young, fun team that's finally coming into their own. And certainly Tim Anderson is a huge part of that, a huge part of this team getting to where everyone thinks they can get this year.

Yeah, I think the interesting thing that happened on the White Sox side this weekend was Jermaine Mercedes made his first start of the season as a DH, went five for five, got another start because of it, had three more hits before the Angels finally got him out. And Jermaine Mercedes is a guy that I would estimate fewer than 5% of the people who play fantasy baseball had ever even heard of him prior to the weekend. And then he became one of the most intriguing pickups on Sunday night because when you think about the White Sox, we talked about Eloy's injury and what they would do if they went external.

There were some options. They haven't done that yet. They haven't made a trade. They didn't sign any of the veterans that were free agents. Moving Andrew Vaughn to left field is the move for now. Mercedes is this sort of positionless masher who in the upper levels of the minor leagues, 2019 was just outstanding. He had 23 homers in 95 games between AA and AAA. He was 26. He's old for the level. But when you have a hitter who's been better than league average every single place he's ever hit during his entire career, it's kind of interesting when that player gets an opportunity. And as a DH, there's no defensive responsibility. Technically, if he plays defense, he's a catcher.

I don't think they like him behind the plate because they were bad enough in the last couple of years where they could have justified giving him a shot if they wanted to. So this is a pretty fascinating development because Eloy is not a good defender and left. He's a great player. He's a great hitter, and he's a developing star. defender and left. He's a great player. He's a great hitter, and he's a developing star. If you can just get Vaughn to play passable defense and left and make the adjustments he's to make as a rookie hitting in the big leagues for the first time, Jermaine Mercedes could be a thing for more than a couple of weeks. We get plenty of stories like this that fizzle out in a couple of weeks, and six months from now, we're not talking about Jermaine Mercedes anymore,

but there's actually a chance. There's a path for this one to be a little bit more permanent. Yeah. You know what's fun about the first three days of wild overreaction, Derek? I see a photo on the MLB Twitter account with Mercedes in the middle, pool host to the left, Trout to the right. And people are like, oh, so nice of pool host and Trout to pose with MLB's best player. And you're like, it's been three days. And you know, I get it. It's fun. It's exciting. I hope Mercedes is not a guy who flames out rather

quickly. What's interesting to me is we haven't talked about pool host yet. He had some really good at bats this series. He's not done yet. I, you know, obviously had a nice home run. I laughed the most probably when he got walked because I forget who was pitching, but they were like, sorry, man. I mean, Pujols is going for all these records. You know, you got to have the intentional walk on Pujols, really? I do hope that some of these things stick. Are the Orioles going to be undefeated?

No. Over 162. We've got two teams that have been played yet in the Mets and Nationals. So are we in the overreaction stage? Yes. Could Mercedes be more than a flash in the pan? I totally agree with you. I don't want to see him catching.

I think, you know, you sacrifice offense for defense and you do it in too many spots and you end up with just really ugly baseball and not like an ugly game or two. But there are chances for him to get some consistent at-bats in the field. There are opportunities for them to ride this as long as they can. And that's the fun part about baseball, right? Who knows? This guy could go on a tear the whole month of April. I think if you're Tony La Russa and you're the White Sox,

you have to play him. You have to find a spot for him right now because his bat's so hot. Yeah, and that Anderson injury, even if it's only a day-to-day sort of thing, probably puts Larry Garcia at shortstop, keeps Vaughn in left, and keeps Mercedes in the lineup for at least a few more days. So he's going to have a chance to hit enough to show them, I canring together. I think Kopech pitched on Friday night. If I'm wrong about the day, I'm sorry, but Michael Kopech looked really good. That was his first big league appearance in 940 days because of injuries, and he opted out of last season. So it's been a long road back for Kopech. He's a guy that could end up being a starter on this team before season's end. Of course white socks are really monitoring his workload carefully but everything looked really good in terms of his command and that was always sort of the the problem with copec in the past stuff was always good

command was always pretty shaky so i thought that was encouraging and we saw chris rodriguez one of the angels top prospects also debut this weekend fastball slider combo was really good. Slider was really tight, nice vertical break. The two seamers he kept throwing had so much movement in on the hands of right-handed hitters. I think Rodriguez is going to be a pretty nice weapon for this Angels bullpen throughout the year. I don't know if they're ever going to stretch him out enough to use him as a starter, but that's one more key arm that they have that if he's healthy, that certainly makes them better. Yeah, it was a great series. And I think when you look around opening day, I don't know if just because I was so excited or what, Derek,

but there were so many really exciting baseball games being played. And I want to get to that brawl in quotes because was it a brawl between the Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds that happened, I believe, on Saturday. That was Saturday. Everybody got a little heated on Saturday. I also have no concept of days. I just kept seeing that highlight over and over and over again. And for those who haven't seen it, it's not a brawl. It's a typical baseball.

Bench is empty. You guys walk around. There were no punches landed. Probably the whole highlight of that for me was Nick Castellones' line later with Yadier Molina, who got very upset, who is very well-known, really protects. He's always been that guy. If you notice in previous brawls, you can Google him. He's had some real good ones.

He protects his pitchers, right? He protects his team. And after the game, Castellones said, you know, he basically could have punched him in the face the other year and he still would have asked him to sign a jersey, which I think might be the favorite for best quote of the season. I know it's really early. I know we're taking everything with a small sample size. But man, what I mean, who would you let punch you in the face and want to sign jersey from? and want to sign jersey from? Oh, that's a great question. I haven't really thought about that. But yeah, that was a funny quote because it was like, I respect this guy

and I understand why he's doing this, but I'm still going to do what I want, which I was trying to figure out how much of this was retaliation for the way Castellanos homered on opening day and he skipped out of the box. He watched it and he skipped out of the box. And look, on this show, we're here for that.

Like that's the sort of energy baseball should have but you still wonder if if yadi being old school and you know being with tony larusa for so long still has that sort of yeah i'm not gonna let that happen mentality or if it was just jake woodford having bad command and just hitting him accidentally it's hard it's it's always hard to know in a situation like that. It was early in the game. Game was a little out of hand. But the play that then sort of started everything was a quick play at the plate. Castellanos slides. Woodford tries to make a tag.

Does kind of fall on him too, so I think that probably in the moment got the adrenaline up for Castellanos. So he gets up and points at him and says something. Do we know what he said? Are we still wondering what actually was said? Because everybody flooded onto the field. Like you said, not officially a brawl. There has to be

at least a punch thrown if it's going to be a brawl. It was a lot of chess beating, right? A lot of bumping into each other, a lot of talking, but not a lot of punching. Yeah, and I think I agree with you. I think it probably stems back to that skipping because I'm all for the back flips to me.

This was a bit much for an opening day home run. I mean, you're game seven of the world series. You want to cartwheel to first base. You can't. Right. But I did think that that was just a bit much for a, a home run.

Given that we are, we're in game one of one 62. I did think it probably rubbed Yachty the wrong way. Probably the thing with the, people don't realize is over the course of a series, these things build, right? So it's that. They're already kind of mad. They're looking for a reason. Yachty gets madder and madder. You know, the Cardinals

start to feel even more slighted. A few calls go against them, a few pitches, you know, whatever. Small pass of things that you and I don't notice, and they start to get angrier and angrier in that dugout. So once that play at the plate happens, whatever little comment was made, and I guess we're all waiting for John Boy to break it down for us, right? Because I don't know if I've seen exactly what was said. You know, it's like any other fight. It's like, you know, you get really mad at your

significant other, but you keep it inside, keep it inside, keep it inside. They leave a dish in the sink and you're just, that's it. You flipped, you're done. So I agree with you. I think it wasn't a brawl by any means. It was exciting. I hope these two teams continue to keep this rivalry going because we need these rivalries. We don't know how good the Reds are going to be. We don't know how good the Cardinals are going to be,

but it was nice to see a lot of fire in that series. And I think, you know, if you're the Reds, you're looking at that and you're like, all right, you know, what can we do to keep this rivalry going? What can we do to still continue to be competitive? Because of those two teams, I think the one that people cannot agree on, the one that I'm really down on, is Cincinnati. Because I'm just not sure if they have the offense to last. I think their pitching is going to be okay. They're going to get Sonny Gray. They're going to have some of these guys come back. I'm mostly concerned about the offense

and whether they can handle it. And having a guy like Cassiones, who has become, I guess, their leader, more or less, one of their leaders, certainly. He said, I'm not a follower. So take that how you will. Having a guy like that step up, stand up, I think kind of matters even if punches aren't thrown. It shows the guys in the dugout like, hey, we're not going to take this. We're not going to handle this. And that's really what these baseball fights are about, right? It's just being like, hey, we're just as tough as you are, even though you're the Cardinals and Yadier Molina and you might punch us. It's weird. Baseball benches clearing is just weird. And bullpens emptying too on top of that.

I mean, in other sports, there are pretty significant penalties for leaving the bench during a fight. Like in a hockey game, if you leave the bench to go fight, you will be suspended for a long time. If the bullpen gate swings open and guys run out into the field and do nothing, there usually aren't repercussions for that, which is just bizarre, even though it's escalation. It's clear escalation of the situation. Interestingly about the Reds for me, though, Castellanos came back in Holbert on Sunday, by the way, so he's got two already on the young season. Jeff Hoffman, who has escaped Coors to become part of the Reds rotation, 6K is over five innings, just three hits allowed.

I mean, any pitcher leaving Colorado, just getting a chance to push reset deserves a second look. So I'm really curious to see what the next couple of starts bring from him because he's a guy that I don't think was projected to be in the rotation, but between Hoffman and Jose de Leon, one of those guys will probably stick around even after Sonny Gray comes back from the IL. So kind of an ongoing battle for that fit starter spot. And Tyler Molle was hitting a career high with velocity in his outing too. So a couple things were going right for the Reds on the pitching side over the weekend. I think I like their offense a little more than you do.

Jonathan India had a nice opening weekend prospect who made the roster. And we're just going to see what the defense is on the left side with Suarez. That is a definite concern. I think Edo and I talked about it a little bit on Friday. A couple errors for him in the opener on Thursday. Did hit a home run. Did the typical Eugenio Suarez thing. Hit a home run. But defense could be a major issue for them if that adjustment doesn't work. But let's get to a few other opening weekend stories. The Phillies swept the Braves. That was just a good series. I don't think that was anything that we need to look at and go, well, this means something. The Phillies swept the Braves. That was just a good series. I don't think that was anything that we need to look at and go,

well, this means something. The Phillies are really good. It's like, no, the Phillies just aren't bad. That to me is my take on the Phillies. You've got them buried a little bit. I think they're a competitive team. I know they ran it back with a lot of the same players,

but their offense is dangerous. Their pitching is not bad. Zach Wheeler looked great. I think that's a really encouraging sign for the Phillies. Wheeler looked outstanding. Yeah, I think watching him with those strikeouts, I'm glad you mentioned him because to me, he's what stands out the most. You're right.

They did play some good baseball. But if you're going to have one big takeaway from that series, it's that Zach Wheeler looked really good. And if he can be that good, it can allow them to steal a lot of games, right? I think no one's really sure. It's funny because every time I see them, the Nats always hit Wheeler well, so I've never been super impressed. And then watching him against other teams, and then certainly watching him this weekend against a Braves lineup that we can all agree is good. I mean, I picked the Braves right there under the Mets is second in the division. Watching him dominate that lineup

the way that he did in his first start, I think was encouraging. I think you're right, the Phillies, maybe, I mean, I am kind of down. I'm not down on them. I just think the NLEs is so stacked. Like, are they better than the Mets? No. Are they better than the Braves over 162? I don't think so. Are they better than the Nationals? Maybe. So now you're fighting for third place, right? So I just think if they were in the NL Central, they'd probably run away with it, right? If they were in America's division, as Derek likes to call it. But they're not a bad team. There's not really any bad teams in the NL East. The Marlins are, I guess, a bad team, but they're an exciting, fun team. They're still a watchable team.

So I agree with you. I think the interesting thing now for the Braves is they get to come to D.C. and play a D.C. team that is essentially right now, no question, the worst team in the league because they are missing 11 players, many of whom would have made their opening day lineup because of a COVID outbreak that started in West Palm Beach last Monday when they boarded a plane. And it's just crazy to me, Derek, because they had no COVID positive tests for six weeks. They get on this plane, everything's happy, everyone's excited, Max Scherzer travels ahead. Now one guy's got COVID. Then four guys get COVID. Then you get more guys entering the quarantine on close contact. They have not worked out yet so we

are going on a really long period of time for no team workout the Mets of course haven't played they're also undefeated they will play tonight though they will open their their season tonight against the Phillies the Nationals will play Tuesday against Atlanta and if I'm Atlanta I'm kind of licking my chops like all right this is a chance to pick up two easy wins here because the Nationals have had to make a flurry of roster moves, had to use a whole bunch of guys. You're going to see a whole bunch of guys that were not going to make the team that they have to use now because of the alternate side and the COVID rules. So if I'm Atlanta, I'm like, all right, we had a bad series. We didn't play poorly.

OK, we got swept. Now we have a chance to go in here and take two easy wins tuesday wednesday uh to feel better about ourselves right to really kind of close this on a better note on the flip side i'm a little concerned about the nationals after such a long layoff considering they're an old team and now they're going to put a bunch of alternate site guys behind max scherzer how is that going to fare i don't really like those odds. Do you? No, I mean, anything's possible. Scherzer could just throw a gem and it might be a moot point, but it certainly puts a lot of strain on this team early in the year. And it sounds very bizarre.

So this all stemmed from their flight leaving spring training. There's not anything they've been able to trace back prior to explain how this happened, which makes it so unusual. Like you said, for the most part, teams haven't had any major issues throughout spring training. And this was the only team, as the season started, that had any COVID-positive players. So I'm baffled by this. I mean, someone like Yadiel Hernandez might have to start in this series against the Braves. I know you wrote a story about him last year. Pretty exciting player.

Actually kind of fits into the Jermaine Mercedes mold of like guy that has just never had a chance, even though there's some pretty interesting production in his recent past. So what do you make of this Nats team at this point? Like, do you think it's just going to be a matter of days before they start to get some guys back? Are we talking more about maybe a week or more before they start to get all their players back into the lineup? I think it's going to be a rough week because if most of their guys are out for Tuesday, Wednesday, they then go and play the Dodgers, who, as we know, are a powerhouse. The Dodgers are tough enough at full strength. Dodgers, who as we know are a powerhouse. The Dodgers are tough enough at full strength.

So I do think they're going to get, you know, healthier as they get through this week here towards the end of the week. But again, the layoff for guys who already, what people don't realize I think is that that few days between when spring training ends and opening day begins kind of messes up a lot of players. Similar to the All-Star break. Guys are just not used to having those extra days. And now you've got guys who have had like a week extra now, which is there's extra, an extra day of rest. All pitchers will take that, but then you get to a point of diminishing returns, right? So I think if you're the Nationals, you're worried about crispness. You're worried about how far are you going to let Max Scherzer go now when he hasn't pitched in how long? Do you have a shorter leash? And this is a team built on their rotation. They're not built for, they're not the Rays. They're not built to have a guy go four or five innings and then close the game out with these,

you know, smattering of really impressive relievers. So I'm a little concerned about that. They had some concerns in the infield before this. Carter Keboom was a guy who didn't make the team. Luis Garcia was a guy who didn't make the team. Luis Garcia was a guy who didn't make the team because of performance. So they already had some issues. They did pick up Jonathan Lucroy, which kind of shows you a little bit about their depth.

They probably need some more depth at catcher. So you're going to see some potentially painful baseball, I think, over the next couple of days. Hopefully they get back on track here. It is so, so early that I think you're not super worried. But again, when you're in the NL East, I think a bad week or two is tough. It's going to be tough to absorb and tough to handle. And I'm just curious

to see how manager Davey Martinez manages this because they didn't really have any issues last year at all. It's truly bizarre. I mean, they say no player broke protocol. Maybe that's true. Maybe that's not. They wouldn't tell us if it wasn't. But it just, I guess, kind of shows like we're not out of the woods yet. Right?

We're close, but we're not all the way there yet. Yeah, definitely a light at the end of the tunnel. But this might not be the only COVID-related interruption to the schedule in 2021, unfortunately. All right, let's get to Cesar Valdez, the 36-year-old reliever, I believe now, throwing 85% change-ups in closing games for the Orioles. We've seen one-pitch closers before, or mostly one-pitch closers, Mariano Rivera, Kenley Jansen, but they're throwing low to mid 90s cutters. That works. I don't know if throwing a changeup 85% of the time can work, Britt. It's in the great early season stories folder. He had a few saves for the Orioles last year, but I think it happened at a time when nobody was really watching the Orioles very closely.

And I think because they ended up sweeping Boston in the opening series, this is a team that's getting a little bit more attention now than they were at the end of very closely. And I think because they ended up sweeping Boston in the opening series, this is a team that's getting a little bit more attention now than they were at the end of last season. Yeah. Someone on this podcast, I don't remember who said that they thought the Red Sox were going to be a second place team. It wasn't Eno.

You know, I think, I think the prediction was there'll be in the mix to be a second place team. I didn't say they would finish second, but I said they'd be right there with the Rays and the Jays behind the Yankees. That is what I said. And it was a, as you call it on Twitter, a jabroni pick,

I think was the technical term that you used. Very technical jabroni take, yes. You know what? The Orioles, they did this a little bit last year, and you're right, we weren't paying attention that much because it was also a 60-game season. But what if they are a little bit better than we think? Maybe they're not terrible.

I don't think they're competitive. But I tell you what else. You mentioned Valdez, great early season storyline. Eventually, I think that's going to burst pretty quickly. But what about Cedric Mullins, who had one heck of a series? think that's gonna burst pretty quickly but what about Cedric Mullins who had one heck of a series what about Trey Mancini who missed all of last season while dealing with cancer and has has also looked like he hasn't missed a beat so there's John Means had a really great opening day start he was I believe their only all-star so uh there are some watchable parts here but I do think this

is mostly an indictment of the Red Sox an indictment of what's going to be a long year in Fenway, unfortunately. Boston's going to have to score a lot of runs to win games. We know that. And they let the Orioles score double-digit runs on them yesterday. And I think you're going to see a lot of these lopsided games because the Red Sox pitching isn't very good and they're hitting uh it's just not going to be able to cover for it i mean they've got bogarts they've got martinez um you know who who else is going to be able to come i i kind of like that's it i'm blanking who else there's just that devers verdugo you know that's kind of this is a big league boston red sox team and i just think it's going to be a really long year.

I don't think they're going to, you know, never win a game. I think it's easy to look at these series and overreact. Like we said, the Orioles are undefeated. The Red Sox are terrible. But I do think that you're, you know, if you're the Red Sox, there are some holes. There are some issues. And you're kind of wondering, okay, this team isn't built to contend this year. But this team is also not built to like bottom out.

This isn't the first year of a five-year rebuild either. This is a team that's trying to put it together with Heimblum, right? That's trying to make some steps forward with a, you know, there are some young guys coming up. There are some guys who feel good about Bobby Dahlbach. You kept hearing about him in spring training, seeing him in person. It's terrific. But I do wonder with the Red Sox and that pitching,

like how they, how they maneuver this season because their bullpen was just tragic a year ago. And I'm not really sure when you look at Toronto and you look at the Yankees, which by the way, it was a great series. We should definitely get into,

you know, if the Orioles are putting up these kinds of numbers against you in a very, very small sample size, at what point are you like, oh, this is not great. This is worse than we maybe imagined it was going to be. I don't think it's time to panic yet. I'm sure if you listen to WEEI today, there will be panic because, I mean, that's just what happens on sports talk radio, naturally. In Boston, look, expectations are always high. I think the top five, top six of that lineup is legitimately good. I think the bottom third of the lineup has some problems. The pitching is going to be an issue. My take on them is still the same. I think they're going to

out-hit their pitching for more periods of time than they don't. This is one of the times where they didn't, and that's going to lead to all these questions. I think Erod, when he comes back, is a pretty good starter. Nathan Evaldi, when he's healthy, is pretty good too. Tanner Houck looked really good. They have problems with the last two spots. Martin Perez is an innings eater. Garrett Richards looked awful.

The bullpen depth isn't good. There are absolutely flaws on this team, but they're not hopeless. And I do think they have a little bit of help coming from the minors as well for this offense that could make the lineup a lot deeper. Jeter Downs, I think, is going to get a chance to play in the big leagues at some point this year. They're going to stop playing Kike and Marwin Gonzalez a lot. They'll make those guys more like bench guys. Jeter Downs will have a spot to call his own once he's ready. And then Jaron Duran, who I think is one of the more interesting stories from the alternate site year, let's call it, because he didn't have minor league games to play in, but he changed his swing and unlocked more power. And he was this guy that was all hit tool previously. He would hit everything. You look back at his minor league numbers,

ridiculous batting average, low strikeout rates, not a lot of power, but he found some last year. And we want to see how that translates into game situations. Can he be a guy that hits 290 or 300 with 20 plus homers and plays good defense in center field? Because if he's that guy, that's a huge win for them on the development side. And it really fixes a problem where I think Alex Verdugo is the center fielder now. He's really more of a corner guy. So if you get Duran up there, you get better defense in center field, and you get one more really good bat, a possible top-of-the-order bat in Duran. Another guy in downs who I think is an impact hitter as well.

So it's kind of a question of how quickly are those guys going to get opportunities because that could take the offense from slightly above average to well above average if that happens, and it would give me a much better chance of being less of a jabroni over the course of the season. You know, I do feel better listening to you talk about the Red Sox. The bullpen issue is actually not, certainly not just that. There's plenty of really, I guess, messy, you know, problematic bullpens would be the right way to put it. I would put Toronto in that case, though Toronto, the Toronto Yankee series, I thought was an interesting series because one, you saw Black Guerrero Jr. off to a real nice start. I think he's now the youngest player in Toronto history to reach 100 hits for them, which is really cool.

hits for them, which is really cool. Two, they were able to win that series, which obviously means panic in Yankee land, similar to the Red Sox. The season is over. However, if you're a Yankees fan, Gary Sanchez is hitting. Gary Sanchez had a really impressive first series for them. And I think you have to take some of those positives out of this as well. And certainly with the Yankees down a few relievers missing, most notably Zach Britton, there are a lot of bullpens that I think that over this first month of the season, Derek, we're going to see a lot of these bullpens get exposed. I think we're going to see a lot of roster shuffling, a lot of guys coming in and out from the alternate site, because the one thing talent evaluators still don't know is how these relievers are going to respond to that down year,

how they're going to deal with not pitching or pitching just a fraction of what they normally do. Bullpens already are so volatile. One year it's a great bullpen, the next year everyone's done. And we've seen that a lot with teams that pitch deep into the year, teams that go to the World Series. So I am curious to see how a lot of these bullpens over the next couple weeks kind of shake out as teams try to almost like Rubik's Cube, right?

Like try to twist around these different parts and see what works. And Toronto is a great example because they already entered the season down Kirby Yates, who we thought was going to be their closer. Right. And I think the question for a lot of these teams is how much does the way they manage the bullpen in the opening series guide the way it's going to be managed going forward? Julian Merriweather had a couple of saves. And I think if you listen to this show, Eno has mentioned him no fewer than a dozen times in the last three to four months. So there's a good chance you already knew who he was. And in deeper leagues, maybe even had

him stashed away. He looks fantastic. And whether it's merriweather or romano working the ninth or some kind of tandem which i think is increasingly possible charlie montoyo has of course the connections to the rays that's where the jays hired him from that's how the rays manage their bullpen weirdly enough i think diego castillo has two saves already and has been used like a regular closer in the first weekend but i think that sort of makes the point where it's like teams are just trying to figure it out. They're just trying to win games. And then the roles might crystallize a little bit more the further we get into the season. So even teams that are mixing and matching a little bit right now, it may be temporary until they kind of get into more of a routine. I think we still will have a few teams that stick with

flexible roles in the bullpen, but I think you can count them on one hand. I don't think it's going to be a league-wide sort of thing. And the Tigers have already done it where Gregory Soto got a save chance and didn't look that good, actually converted the chance. And then Brian Garcia came back two days later and closed out a game. So yes, there will be messy situations, but there will also be guys that just completely implode. And unfortunately, I think Cesar Valdez is probably one of them. So then a guy like Tanner Scott's going to get saves and the bullpen hierarchy there is going to change because it's going to take more guys to emerge. It's going to take some guys who aren't even on the roster yet getting a chance to get called up in May and June to start making an impact before

the late inning scripts really start to be written in ink. Yeah. I mean, I'm glad you mentioned the Tigers because to me, they're an awful but entertaining team. And they win two of three against Cleveland this weekend. You got Cabrera making diving plays. You got him homering in the snow. And then you've got that young group, right? So to me,

the Tigers are going to be interesting to watch. There's some bad, interesting teams. I put the Royals in that category too. Michael A. Taylor, who was kind of thrown away by DC all those years, two home runs, big story of the opening day weekend. I love these early storylines, Derek, because one, they have no bearing at all, right? Like we can listen to this podcast in two weeks and be like, God, we are idiots. Everything we said was wrong.

And that's the point when you're this early on. But I have the Royals as another awful but entertaining team, right? And by awful, I mean not competitive. They're not going to win the division. But I think that there's some things that you can kind of watch and be like, oh, I'm watching to watch this player. I'm watching to watch these young guys. I think that's the case in Kansas City, the case in Detroit, the case in Miami. I don't think that's the case in Texas. By the way, that like 11 to 10 I don't think that's the case in Texas, who, by the way, that

like 11 to 10 game, I think it was on Saturday. It's like a four and a half hour Royals, Royals Texas game. I don't know why I was watching. I don't know why most people were watching towards the end. It was literally four and a half hours. I don't think there's a whole lot outside of Joey Gallo to feel excited about in Texas. That's watchable right now. But I think Detroit and Kansas City, to me, are the entertaining but bad teams. Do you have any entertaining but bad teams, I guess? Any takes you want to throw out here besides the Red Sox? I would co-sign on the Royals.

I mean, they're clearly trying. They brought up young players last year with Brady Singer getting that opportunity in the rotation. And Chris Bubich got some starts last year, too. They're going to do it again. Daniel Lynch is going to come up at some point and join the rotation. Maybe Jackson Kowar is going to join the rotation too. And they've got other prospects who are knocking the door. Bobby Witt Jr. at some point this summer could be playing in Kansas City. And right now, Mondese's hurt. So if they can sort of just keep it afloat while Mondese's out, get him back, he could be their best offensive player. That's in his range of outcomes. So the Royals have a lot of things kind of for everybody.

They've got some guys that steal bases. They've got some power in that lineup. And they've got a few interesting pitchers mixed in now, too. So I think they definitely qualify as a team I will watch, even though they might not win more than 80 games this year. They're going to be competitive in a lot of games that they don't win, and I think that's what you're looking for as you're going through a rebuilding process. Taylor is pretty interesting. I wrote him up in my free agent pickups piece this week because no one thinks about him,

but he was in a crowded outfield situation with the Nats, and he's shown power. He's shown speed. He's a good defender in center field, too, and I think when you're a good defender, that keeps your playing time consistent. So if he's their everyday center fielder and he's going to pile up 500 plus plate appearances this year, you're probably going to get double digit home runs. 10 to 15 home runs doesn't seem out of the question. And he's probably going to steal 20 plus bases because that's what he brings when he's playing a lot. Yeah. And he had, I think, two outfield assists on opening day.

So, I mean, he's got the arm. He was always a defensive replacement in D.C. And he's the kind of guy who I agree, I think he benefits from being told, hey, you're our guy. You're going to play every day. Not like, oh, you're going to play here and there. And, oh, Soto needs a day. We're going to put you in here.

I think some guys perform better not having that pressure of having to make something happen. And a few post seasons ago, before I got to DC, Michael Taylor had this monster post season. And ever since then, Nationals fans kind of fell in love with him. But it was just like, never going to work in DC, right? It just never was going to fit into that puzzle. And it's cool to watch him in Kansas City. I got a bunch of texts over the weekend about him because I don't think people outside of like the deep fantasy leagues like knew he existed really, right? And I think watching him, he was one of the stars of opening day weekend offensively and defensively. So it's again, it's up there with with Valdez, right? Or is this guy who throws in the 80s going to continue to close games? Is Michael A. Taylor going to continue

to hit two home runs in two days? Probably not, but it's baseball and it's entertaining and it's fun to talk about positive stuff this time of year, especially because last year at this time, there was no baseball. And then even when it started,

we spent the first 45 minutes talking about COVID. So the fact that we have so much actual entertaining baseball, save for the situation in D.C., has been really cool to see. Yes, it has been a breath of fresh air, a much-needed breath of fresh air. And I think one of the best games of the weekend from a pure pitching standpoint played out in Milwaukee on Saturday night. Jose Barrios and Corbin Burns, that was an actual great pitcher's duel.

Barrios left the game having not allowed a hit. Burns ended up giving up a home run in that game. I believe it was to Byron Buxton. Buxton hit two in the weekend. Maybe I'm confusing the home runs, but they both looked outstanding. They looked like frontline starters. And that's a place where you don't usually see

a lot of pitcher's duels because it's such a hitter-friendly environment. So really fun game if you're into pitching there. Buxton throughout the weekend, Britt, looked outstanding. One of the home runs he hit in the series was like a 450-foot mammoth shot to deep center. The other one was an opposite field, at least a right center field homer. Like his approach looks good. He drew a couple of walks. If this is the new version of Byron Buxton,

the Twins have the star they were hoping for throughout his time in their organization. Yeah, which would be awesome to see. I admittedly put this game on when I saw that Berrios had a no-hitter. Then very quickly after that, he was taken out. I get it. Would you have done it, though? It's tough.

It's tough. Would you have let him go a little deeper no you gotta play you gotta play the whole i mean it's it's the unfortunate thing of a pitcher having six no hit innings this early in the year you have to just follow the pitch counts you can't you can't risk long-term health just to get that the possibility of that no hitter right i mean? I mean, it's still, even in the sixth, what are your odds of actually finishing a no-hitter at that point? One percent? And you can watch it all fall away because Trevor Bauer was absolutely cruising in his opener. And then I think it was maybe the seventh inning?

Maybe? All of a sudden, home run, couple runs. He gave up three runs and he had been dominant up until then. So you're right, you can lose it very quickly quickly and then especially now when they don't have the conditioning they don't have the workload under their belts you don't want to push it um it is always unfortunate though because you sit there and think well poor barrios like you're what could have been right maybe obviously the odds are stacked way against you but maybe you could have i don't know i like the twins though i

i picked them over the white socks i continue to believe that they're gonna probably win the central um if buxton is playing up to that you know up to what you thought he was going to be for years now we've heard about this potential right we've heard about the speed and the arm and the defense and uh what he can't. And then he had the concussion. He had a bunch of injuries. It just seemed like he hasn't been right. So he's kind of a little bit of an X factor to me anyway, when it comes to them, just because you kind of forget about him because he's never lived up to what he was supposed to be. Yeah, I think he's probably less a part of the national conversation than anyone would have expected when the Twins drafted him. And in fantasy, because of the speed, he's been a guy that people keep taking the chance on, hoping to get the completely healthy season. I think in our minds, we look at him and we say, at his best, he's going to be a guy that maybe hits 20 homers, but he's going to steal 35 or 40 bases, which is a great player.

Especially when you tack on gold glove caliber defense in center field. But they hit him third on Saturday. I mean, he's in the heart of the order. I think he's going to run less and deliver more power if he stays there. That often happens when players are put into that spot in the batting order. And I think I looked at the power surge from last year. He really showed a completely different set of skills in the shortened season. I thought it was a small sample fluke, but

I should have listened to Dan Hayes. We talked to him on Fantasy Baseball in 15 for our Twins preview, and I asked him point blank. I said, Dan, is this going to be a case where Buxton just goes back to speed Buxton with some power? He's like, no, he's actually changing. He's changing his

approach. He's changing his body. I said, okay, whatever, Dan. You're just saying the things that a beat writer says. What do you know? You only watch the team every day and have covered them for a few years. How would you possibly know? You're closer to the situation than me. So that's my hubris, I guess. But look, if you drafted Byron Buxton expecting 40 steals and you get 25 or 30 home runs instead with 10 steals, you're still going to be fine in the end. And the Twins, as I said, will be very, very happy with that development. But yeah, that's a good Twins team. My only concern for them is that they are built to get

to the playoffs and they're not necessarily built to win in the playoffs. That's the concern I have for them. What? The Twins don't win in the playoffs? We've got a nice track record of that, right? I mean, deep analysis, but you need star power in the postseason, and I'm not sure they have quite enough of that. The Josh Donaldson injury, unfortunately, not shocking given what he's dealt with in recent years. It's a hamstring instead of a calf this time. He's on the IL right now. Hopefully, it's not long for him, but they do need him healthy. Luis Uas looks amazing. He's hitting everything. Every time you look up when you watch the Twins, Luis Arias is

on base. Yeah. I mean, how many screens you got going for opening day, Derek? Because I have two and I'm still constantly overwhelmed and MLB TV is freezing as I'm switching from one game to the other. Now it's commercial on that one I switched out of. It's a full-time job, guys, watching all this baseball. I'm telling you, it is not a hard life. It is a fun life. But I think I need one more screen to really nail it. I feel like I'm always missing something. Well, I've got one screen, but I do the four view on MLB TV.

So then that works pretty well. Usually four games at once is enough because I got my computer right next to me and then the extra screen. But the hack is if you do quad screen on MLB TV, you have to zoom out as far as you can in your browser window. Because otherwise there's like score overlays across the top and there's other stuff on the bottom of the screen that makes the windows pretty small. I got like a 20, like it's a 27 inch monitor. So four games when I'm sitting like two feet away should be pretty big, but you have to zoom out to actually make that happen because there's a glitch. You can't hit the full screen view and have all four games on at once.

It will cut down to one game when you hit the full screen button, which is like a really frustrating thing. But that workaround is very helpful. All right, Britt, I think we got through most of the weekend observations. I really have my doubts about Cesar Valdez, by the way. If I didn't express that earlier, I wanted to work to be fun, but Tanner Scott's going to get more saves over the course of the season. It's going to happen. Tanner Scott looks really good, by the way. We talked about the Nats COVID update, the other sort of heavy story from the baseball world. Commissioner Manfred relocating the All-Star game.

At this time, at least, no new location has been announced, but the game will not be played in Atlanta. And I was reading some of the pieces about it on The Athletic. Evan Drellick's piece, I think, kind of drove the point home that no matter what Rob Manfred did with the All-Star game, it was going to be viewed as a political statement. If he kept the game in Atlanta, it was a political statement. If he moved the game, it was a political statement. So he was in sort of a no-win situation in terms of not crossing sports and politics, which frankly, I know people will come into this podcast and articles and sports in general, trying to escape the world and the troubles of the world and politics especially. Unfortunately, sports and politics have always

been intertwined. You can't untangle them. It's literally impossible. So as you think about other possible places for the All-Star Game to be played, do you have any sense of where they might relocate this game to? Well, what about Milwaukee, Derek? What about Derek's backyard? They can honor Hank Aaron. They, you know, I saw that, was it their mayor? Somebody made a plea already, like a public plea to have it. I think it'd be awesome.

I've seen a bunch of other things like thrown out, like Chicago is a potential option. Will they take into account account and we talked about this offline like the politics of that place they move it to now I think it's important to remember it's it wasn't just a political decision um it was a it was a case of our players going to boycott and make us look bad and our corporate sponsor is going to pull out because Coca-Cola and a bunch of other places were like well don't know how we're... So it was also a financial decision. It certainly wasn't Rob Manfred just deciding that he was going to do this to do this.

I think you got to think first and foremost, this is a business and someone must have analyzed this for him and monetary, it must have been monetary wise, not the best option for them. I wonder, is it too late to push up? LA was supposed to be next year, right? Do you push up LA? Is that a potential? Is that a thing?

Maybe? I thought I saw that get shot down. That was one of the things that did make some sense, where they were already sort of prepared to host one. But I don't know. I mean, we're only three months and change away from the game. Logistically, I imagine there's a lot that has to go on behind the scenes to actually make this happen in another city.

It doesn't seem as easy as you might think to just move the All-Star game from one place to another. Right. So do you just have it somewhere that recently had it because they have the infrastructure and some of those things in place already? People mentioned DC and they hosted it, I believe, in 18. You know, because it's in our nation's capital. It's got, you know, the stuff in place. I think Milwaukee would be great. I'm sure there is things that go into this. I'm sure there's a lot of things that go into this. But I think you'd have to decide this week. No,

you'd have to make a decision very quickly. Because it's a all the community events that go it's not just the game. It's it's the community events. It's the celebrity softball tournament. It's it's literally all of that stuff, the home run derby, all the things that go into it blocking off the hotels. So I would think they'd have to do it this week. And just to give people a chance to prepare. If they can't push up LA, then I guess my inclination would be a city that has hosted it in the last five years just because it's probably a lot easier, probably got a lot of stuff saved.

But I don't know. No one asks me, Derek. No one asks me. No one asks you. I'm sure you would vote for Milwaukee, though, to be able to have it in your backyard. Yeah, I mean, it happened. The last time the All-Star game was here

was that 2002? End of high school? It was a while ago. It was the game that ended in a tie, which was not the... Yeah, it was the 2002 All-Star game that was in Milwaukee. So they could bring it here.

I think most big cities have enough hotel rooms and enough conference centers to do all the different things around the event. They could. They could bring it here. I mean, I think most big cities have enough hotel rooms and enough conference centers to do all the different things around the event. They could probably pull it off, but I don't have a good sense for why they would choose Milwaukee other than the tie to Hank Aaron. That would be, you say, well, yeah, we're still going to honor Hank Aaron. It makes sense to honor him in another place where he played. honor Hank Aaron. It makes sense to honor him in another place where he played. I guess that makes as much sense as any other place. It's something we've seen in other sports. We saw the NBA

do this in 2017, I believe it was, moving a game out of Charlotte for similar reasons. I don't know. I don't have a good sense for it, Britt. LA made sense to me, and they shot that down really quickly. I don't know. I continue to believe Camden Yards would be a great spot for it, and they shot that down really quickly. Yeah, I guess. I don't know.

I continue to believe Camden Yards would be a great spot for it, and they haven't hosted it in a very long time. Maybe not. I'd have to look. Maybe not. I assume they have at some point. They've had one before. I remember a home run derby there at some point.

It's a beautiful ballpark. It's definitely a city that I think can support it. I don't know. I. So I don't know. I don't know what they end up doing with it, Derek. Maybe they get rid of some of these events and shorten the week up some, a little bit. But they didn't have an All-Star game last year, so they kind of need one.

Yeah, you get the sense that they want to have it for a lot of financial reasons of course, right? And they want players who are selected in to play. They want them to actually show up and play too. So 1993 was the last time the All-Star game was in Camden Yards, by the way. So it has been a bit longer

since Baltimore had one. I don't know. I'm curious to see where it goes, Britt. I have no read on what they want to do in this instant. That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels on Twitter. You can find Britt at Britt underscore Jerole. I am at Derek

Van Ryper. You can drop us a line. Rates and Barrels at TheAthletic.com We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening. You know Sarah's voice. you